According to Taco Bell:

Alcina of TGA wrote:It seems also that GW sells currently more AoS products than 40K ones on a worldwide basis.

On the face of it, that sounds preposterous. 40k has been GW's largest product line for decades, with SM outselling all other product combined.

OTOH, AoS has now settled in as a game with a very low barrier to entry, due to the free rules and units on the GW website, along with the recent GHB.

Could this really be true?

If AoS brought in newbies, as it was designed to, and those newbies started buying, like GW wants them to, then it's entirely possible that this new cohort of new players is outspending the old 40k crowd who already have all the models they'll ever need.

If that's the case, it would mean that 40K tanked big time, not that AoS suddenly became a huge seller. But let's be real, this is simply a pathetic click bait.

That bodes ill for the future of 40K if true. 40K prepared to be AoSed!

Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

If it's true, we'll probably see it reflected in the next ICv2 numbers that come out (isn't that quarterly?)

Personally, I doubt it's true as "pure" AoS. I have a suspicion if you looked closely, a lot of the sales are for product being actually used in 8th/9th Age and Kings of War - i.e., just the models and not the AoS rules. That they keep bring back the "Last Chance to Buy" things that have been squatted in AoS, I think that supports that.

But, hey, if folks are buying and using the models, it's still money in GW's pocket.

If true I would assume that it's just a temporary rush of purchasing due to:
1. Declining interest in 40K because it has become too top heavy and competitive.
2. The Generals Handbook

I'm a longtime 40K hobbyist who never desired to play WFB, but I bought into AoS and have found it to be a fantastic game. I highly recommend it.

Are they talking net revenue? Or are they talking growth as a percentage? If it's the latter then I can believe it. Otherwise you'll need to show me hard data before I sign on.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

Haven't played since 5th edition.

If that's true GW's in real deep doodoo this half year report.

I think it's very likely to be true from Ironjawz/Sylvaneth through the GHB and into September. But from what I've seen GSC have blown everything out the water and are probably the best selling release of the last 3 years. My local GW sells GSC in white boxes now, as in they can print off more sprues but they don't have printed boxes to put them in at the moment. Everyone and their aunt seems to be collecting them.

All anecdotal however :-)

Holy cow on the GSC sales - those are EXPENSIVE!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

40K is a mess right now, but it's sitll far better than AoS, which is simply trash imo. Speaking of playing rules as written, do you enjoy talking to your little toy's soldier and yelling at your opponent while playing a miniature game ???

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

No. Hell no.

I stopped when 7th edition was announced, and despite some really cool armies coming out since I left 40k, I just cannot stomach delving into the mess of books, supplements, formations, and all the other crap I'd need to begin understanding the current state of the game.

I'd kinda like a simplified version, to be honest. Or a time machine to go back to when 5th edition was current.

What is the meaning of Taco Bell here? To me they are a fast food chain.

Davor wrote:
What is the meaning of Taco Bell here? To me they are a fast food chain.

BOLS maybe. One of their "BREAKING RUMORS" clickbait mentioned casually with no evidence at all

It seems also that GW sells currently more AoS products than 40K ones on a worldwide basis.

Davor wrote:
What is the meaning of Taco Bell here? To me they are a fast food chain.

It's a direct measure of the quality of the clickbait gak that passes for an article on their site.

Hmm the comments on that article on BOLS is quite surprising with many saying that they don't actually find this surprising in the least. Still take it with a grain of salt considering it's a rumor AND read the first line of said rumor in the article.

I suppose I could see this being true, but I find it slightly hard to believe as there is still so much basic ground that needs to be covered to bring all the old models that weren't squated into AoS proper-like (Battletomes, repacks, etc.). Then again, I could see how there would be a little bit of disillusionment with 40k right now as GW seems to be focusing so dang much on Heresy stuff.

I know in my GW, AOS is on par with 40k in terms of sales, so from a GW store perspective it would not surprise me if AOS was on par or exceeding 40k overall.

There are many reasons for that. For one, most people already have 40k armies, and there is a glut of 40k armies on the 2nd hand market. AOS not as much (the newer factions anyway) so while 40k games are more prevalent, buying 40k models is not. (that is just here though)

Considering the fact that AoS is a new game, this does not surprise me at all. AoS players for a large part will be buying entire new armies, whereas most 40k players will already have most of what they need.

For what it's worth the person quoted said on TGA that that was just what they heard at their local shop. Bols of course ran with it because hey clickbait. They could have very well meant it was out selling at that particular store not globally and BOLS decided to take it and claim it as something more as they are wont to do

Yeah I seriously doubt it. Unless it was just an offhand comment that maybe that week AoS outsold 40k because it was a week of big AoS releases and nothing had been released for 40k for a few weeks. We know new releases account for about one third of total revenue from GW.

If AoS is outselling 40k I'd say it's probably a bad thing for 40k more than a good thing for AoS.

Though maybe 40k has slipped if you exclude 30k sales, we know from last year's financial report that FW made up a larger chunk of sales than it normally does so 40k must have slipped since overall revenue didn't increase. So maybe a big chunk of the 40k sales have just shifted to 30k.

Do they add Betrayal at calth and Burning of Prospero to that number?

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Do they add Betrayal at calth and Burning of Prospero to that number?

Boxed stand alone games, not 40K, no?

Seems like nonsense but anecdotally there seems to be plenty of people playing AoS at our club and they are all buying plenty of stuff. Tournament scene for it seems to be taking off too.

It seems also that GW sells currently more AoS products than 40K ones on a worldwide basis

All depends on what they mean by "currently" imo. I think AoS has had some very strong releases this year with Syl, orcs etc and the generals handbook/points additions.
40k is at an impasse atm with people perhaps waiting to see if 8th drops, old codices really needing updates (poor Nids) and some "niche" releases (Custodes, GSC etc - great products but not everyones cup of tea) and a general feeling of malaise with the rules.
AoS got a good shot in the arm this year with the handbook/points and tournament scene returning.
So Im not totally dismissive of the theory, just short on evidence and again what is "currently".

Sells more products currently could mean a number of things.

AoS sold 250 total wigits last week from the GW website compared to 40k's 249 wigits.

OR

AoS sold 49 different SKUs last week than the 48 that 40k sold.

OR

AoS has sold more total wigits in 2016 than 40k wigits through the GW web store and all distributers.

Without some numbers, timeline, and other specifics, it's a meaningless, throw-away, click bait comment.

Did the one who posted this on the TGA forum got told AoS sells better than AoS? Yes, why not. But is it correct? 40k outsold AoS/WFB for decades and during the last ten years by ~ 5:1. The WFB product line struggled hard to even make two digit percentage of GW's annual income a few years ago. This info (as provided) is nonsense.

Well there is one thing I never seen talked about here. For 40K don't we have most of what we want this year? Unless you are a Genestealer Cult or Deathwatch player what really new came out codex wise for 40K players?

Since a lot if not most people didn't have anything for AoS, of course they would be buying more of that product since they don't have it and already have what they need for 40K.

Maybe if there was more 40K that people needed for their army or actually wanted they would be buying that as well or be buying less AoS stuff. Since there is not much 40K stuff to buy they went ahead and bought the AoS stuff now.

 kronk wrote:
Without some numbers, timeline, and other specifics, it's a meaningless, throw-away, click bait comment.

Oh how I wish more people read statements with a critical eye so they could identify meaningless statements when they come up

Wouldn't surprise me 40K rules wise is a steaming pile of crap. Cant wait to see 7th go and have 40k AoS'd. Get rid of some of the old guard

No matter how bad 40k is I can't believe it would sell less than another terrible game.

I game at a HUGE FLGS and I think just BaC outsold all of AOS

40k may be in a pretty sorry state right now, but I don't see AoS as being any better.

GW is just abysmal at writing rules, and that's it.

Seems like standard bullgak from Taco Bell.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Do they add Betrayal at calth and Burning of Prospero to that number?

That's a good question. If GW sees 30k as separate from 40k, then AoS could easily be outselling non-30k 40k.

 Easy E wrote:
Haven't played since 5th edition.

Haven't played since 5th edition as well

All I can do is add an anecdote.

Locally, in the major city I play in, 40k is fairly alive and active, as is AoS.

40k gets played *fairly* regularly, mostly revolving around big competitive events with the same people, maybe once or twice a month.

AoS has a massive event that rotates stores every Friday, pulls in 10-15 players easily, and is constantly gaining new people.

Locally- GW is dying on the vine.

AOS gathers dust on the shelves, and 40 K is giving way to Warmahordes, Malfaux, and X Wing.

On a stranger note, Bold Action is coming up in conversations...

The pricing is killing the appeal across the board, and people are just outright losing faith in GW.

 Grot 6 wrote:
Locally- GW is dying on the vine.

AOS gathers dust on the shelves, and 40 K is giving way to Warmahordes, Malfaux, and X Wing.

On a stranger note, Bold Action is coming up in conversations...

The pricing is killing the appeal across the board, and people are just outright losing faith in GW.

Not so sure. You talk about price killing the appeal yet Warmahordes is dong the same. They have some very high prices as well. Not as ludicrous as most GW products, but still very high.

GW dying? No. This was said 20 years ago, and GW is still around. They will still be around. Will they die? No. Will they become as successful as they once were? Time will tell. Right now I don't think they will. They will just tread water. They won't sink but they will not rise above to what they once were.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

No, because at this point it has become too convoluted. There is way too much you need/have to think about and process while playing the game. I love the universe and hope it never changes, but it is no longer an easy game to pick up and learn. Thats why I haven't bothered with 40k in a while, I have however enjoyed all of the individual thematic boxed games they have been doing. You guys keep mentioning warmahordes and other games, and I just don't see the appeal in them. They don't have the universe and delicious IP, the coolness factor is lacking on every level. I will admit X wing is great, armada is as well...even though its more tricky to master.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

Exaulted.

No. Just no. I got a few games in this year before the other 2 players left Delhi, and no, they were not fun. Painting was fun. Talking to the other guys was fun. My homebrew spaceship corridor scenario was fun.

But designing armies, juggling formations and combinated arms and so, so many special rules and rolling for psy powers...

Not fun, not fun at all.

hmm

Multiple ways to get at the core rules and army lists at multiple price ranges. Start collecting boxes that form a better core to an army. Lots of shiny new model ranges with solid rules I could see a combination of low barrier to entry and good models = lots of sales.

In my area the wargaming group has gone almost exclusively warmahordes and 30k with a side of killteam. I do see about as many people picking up AOS kits for hobbying as I see 40k sales, but warmahordes has taken over. Most of the group have several established 40k armies so there is no need for more. Or in my case no point in adding to my orks and chaos beyond a couple of paint projects.

But we don't have a time frame or know what and how they are counting this so, lets wait for the financial reports.

At my local GW both games are pretty strong but speaking with a relatively new player (to both 40k and fantasy/AOS) he is drawn a little bit more to AOS for it being a little easier to get into and enjoy.

At Independent retailers... or at least the ones that have GW game players over there... 40K is still kind of king.

In my bedroom... GW is gak... the cats are the top of the pop... all hail cats... (they have scout, infiltrate, and rending... and pooping)

I've spenet a fortune this year at GW, probably the most I've ever spent with them. But looking at what I bought could back up the above statement.
Betrayal at Calth (30k not 40K)
Burning of Prospero (likewise)
Start collecting Nurgle (which category does this go to)
Start collecting Khorne (as above)
Execution Force (is this placed in seperate category?)
Several boxes of Direwolves to convert to Flesh hounds (AoS)
Screamers of Tzeentch (?)
Flamers of Tzeentch (?)
Start collecting Orks (the only definate 40K)

GW's still dead around my way even mentioning AoS will see you laughed out the shop.

X-wing and Armada still the most popular with 9th age and kow having some traction.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Do they add Betrayal at calth and Burning of Prospero to that number?

That's a good question. If GW sees 30k as separate from 40k, then AoS could easily be outselling non-30k 40k.

I can see it happening if you count WHQ and the last chance to buy stuff as being AoS sales. But without any actual details, it's impossible to tell.

Anecdotally, here, AoS is never mentioned, people are selling off WHFB armies for cheap, and there's still a few 40K games on the go. But we're a smallish club of mostly older gamers, where boxed games have totally taken off.

Herzlos wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Do they add Betrayal at calth and Burning of Prospero to that number?

That's a good question. If GW sees 30k as separate from 40k, then AoS could easily be outselling non-30k 40k.

I can see it happening if you count WHQ and the last chance to buy stuff as being AoS sales. But without any actual details, it's impossible to tell.

Anecdotally, here, AoS is never mentioned, people are selling off WHFB armies for cheap, and there's still a few 40K games on the go. But we're a smallish club of mostly older gamers, where boxed games have totally taken off.

Slightly different situation here - with some WHFB armies being eBayed, and others repurposed for Kings of War.

Honestly, I think that which game is doing best is which game has a strong supporting local group of players.

Locally, Kings of War has one, and AoS does not, so the KoW group gets their game played, and the game gets more people - in a positive feedback loop.

AoS started with its worst foot forward - the game may be vastly improved from what it was on first release, but that initial offering soured a lot of people on the game. (And with good reason - it was pretty darned bad when it first came out - and I know that I have not bothered looking at it since. It was downright insulting.)

Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

I could see AoS outselling 40k as there's only so many Space Marines one can own (although I seem to be collecting a Chapter these days), although I personally really enjoy 40k 7th edition and I find it takes the lion's share of my gaming time these days. My gaming group is currently doing 40k, AoS, Infinity, and just started with Dropfleet Commander.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

This is true of every miniature game where the only thing that matters is the base and not the vertical space of the miniature. You can play 40k or AoS with coins if you make some LOS assumptions. WM/H even goes so far as to have the entire volume of each base defined in the rules.

I don't actually believe AoS is outselling 40k unless 40k stagnated hard. Or there was a particular poor array of 40k releases while there was a particular strong array of AoS releases and naturally for that tiny period they sold in higher numbers that is only an artifact of a release cycle. Even then, I'm guessing that random purchases of items from the existing Space Marine product line would outsell all of AoS for any given period.

Davor wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
Locally- GW is dying on the vine.

AOS gathers dust on the shelves, and 40 K is giving way to Warmahordes, Malfaux, and X Wing.

On a stranger note, Bold Action is coming up in conversations...

The pricing is killing the appeal across the board, and people are just outright losing faith in GW.

Not so sure. You talk about price killing the appeal yet Warmahordes is dong the same. They have some very high prices as well. Not as ludicrous as most GW products, but still very high.

GW dying? No. This was said 20 years ago, and GW is still around. They will still be around. Will they die? No. Will they become as successful as they once were? Time will tell. Right now I don't think they will. They will just tread water. They won't sink but they will not rise above to what they once were.

Locally.

THAT is the key word in the context. See my illustrious poster that posted right before I did.

On my end, it comes down to a couple of points of discussion to elaborate, but at the end of the day- Gaming is honestly in flux right now, and there are ALOT of different aspects that have to do with the large spread of discussions.

1. AOS gathers dust on the shelves, and 40 K is giving way to Warmahordes, Malfaux, and X Wing.[i]

No one locally is interested in this new game. The fact that there were a few Fantasy Players that honestly felt themselves shafted by the development of this radically different agenda by GW, combined with a price hike at the time, and the whole, "Well, we destroyed the old world, sucks to be you." feel that came out of left field from GW that in turn lead to the change of leadership and developments in the meta game.

X Wing, Warmahordes, and Malfaux have local represented support because of a very solid community that run events, support the game with tournys, and the local area is easy on getting both new product, and resale/ trades. Apparently there has been an ongoing steady run of players for Warmahordes that have been slow and steady, and they pull in new and older players that haven't played since 1. ( Me included. I agree on the buy in, and the update on my end is in tune, card decks and books alone, to the tune of 100.00. 20.00 each for two card decks to start and a 60.00 new rulebook.

(They are adding in the small rulebook with the box to battle crews, now, as well... So that is a major appeal. 1 box of caster and two to three jacks/ beasts, and a infantry crew- at basic cost of around an extra 100-120.00 USD. The new guy pops everything out, puts it together, and brings it to the table, almost within 2 hours. As compared to- 200-500.00 per a basic army for GW. You buy a basic GW army, and your bringing it in maybe 2 weeks to 3-4, depending on your commitment.

X wing, right out of the box- then the community always has extras for sell/ trades.

Malfaux is touch and go, and the ongoing local RPG does have its crowd as well.

and Bolt Action/ Konflict 47 is strangely bringing in the old dust players, and new players as well. "Gotta be the mechs. WW2 doesn't hurt- either."

2. The pricing is killing the appeal across the board, and people are just outright losing faith in GW.

The price is the deal breaker. YES, Warmahordes has a buy in of around 200 bucks, but that helps when the rules do not change all that much, you get a rerelease of the "New" rules if you want to, and if not, there are plenty of ways to get the rules for free, Figures stay pretty much the same, you can still use your old lickies and chewies, and add in as time goes by. And like I said, there are a slow and established crowd of the players that have been playing for years that have always been there, and understand the environment that they have developed for the game.

Pricing for games that have appeal and a strong audience are offset by their community themselves. They help each other with the pricing issues.

End of the statement here needs a disclaimer- YOUR local community dictates YOUR perception. just because my area is lacking doesn't mean that some of these other new games, such as the Warhammer quest stand in, 30K games, and specialist games are not jumping the shark.

I'm trying to scare up an audience for Necromunda, and am strangely finding people who don't even have an idea that this is even a game. O.o

GW's pricing have hit breaking point. Ones or twos, a paint or two start breaking the bank, people end up buying less trading, or buying secondary market. I'm going to go ahead and call it that there will be plenty of sales soon, and one shot armies, and also armies built from boxes broken down and sold piecemeal...

How much does an army cost is the end of the day question that runs people off.

 frozenwastes wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

This is true of every miniature game where the only thing that matters is the base and not the vertical space of the miniature. You can play 40k or AoS with coins if you make some LOS assumptions. WM/H even goes so far as to have the entire volume of each base defined in the rules.

I don't actually believe AoS is outselling 40k unless 40k stagnated hard.

KoW defines block size in the rules and is a pure 2D game. RAW 40k is TLOS, so you're houseruling the game a lot. The difference that you are missing is that KoW can be played with blocks of wood representing the unit, whereas 40k and WMH and so on are all individual model games. KoW, you don't move individual models with squad coherency. Nor are models glorified wound markers.

Now that I'm looking, I see a LOT of anecdotes that AoS is bringing in a lot of new blood, not 40k.

hobojebus wrote:
GW's still dead around my way even mentioning AoS will see you laughed out the shop.

X-wing and Armada still the most popular with 9th age and kow having some traction.

Where do you live out of curiosity, Hobo? :-)

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Davor wrote:
What is the meaning of Taco Bell here? To me they are a fast food chain.

It's a direct measure of the quality of the clickbait gak that passes for an article on their site.

It seems as if you perhaps already knew the answer to your question then?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

News flash - no miniatures game really needs miniatures - paper counters can be used just fine. (Heck, there were editions of WHFB and scenarios therefor that came with just that.)

People will often test their KoW game with paper outlines, but in actual play the least that I have seen has been PDF miniatures glued to the appropriate base.

People like having their minis - and given a choice between a cardboard rectangle and a nice block of painted troops, most will choose the block of painted troops.

The Auld Grump

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

KoW defines block size in the rules and is a pure 2D game. RAW 40k is TLOS, so you're houseruling the game a lot. The difference that you are missing is that KoW can be played with blocks of wood representing the unit, whereas 40k and WMH and so on are all individual model games. KoW, you don't move individual models with squad coherency. Nor are models glorified wound markers.

So 40k is a 'lots of small blocks of wood' game compared to KoW's larger blocks of wood. And KoW saves you the time of removing small blocks of wood when the dice go against you rather than just keeping count before you remove the large block of wood.

I really don't see what your point is.

As for the subject title. My local anecdote is that a few people buy AoS stuff to paint. 40k is slowly dying but a few excited teenagers are buying up armies cheap as people sell up and move on.
The main games seem to be X-wing, Bolt Action and whatever is the current new kid on the block - which comes and goes. If people want to play fantasy, it's KoW or Frostgrave.

Wow, you guys are really fething defensive about KoW... I did not expect that at all.

But my point would be that nobody needs to buy AoS to play KoW.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wow, you guys are really fething defensive about KoW... I did not expect that at all.

But my point would be that nobody needs to buy AoS to play KoW.

While that may have been your intent (Which I honestly rather doubt) that is not what you wrote. And if it was what you meant then there was no reason to post - even if you do consider KoW to be a block game then it does not matter, because people are using miniatures.

In point of fact, the only reason to use miniatures with any miniatures game is that they look good - my point was that rules matter, and right now GW does not have good rules.

And in the final measure, nobody needs to buy either KoW or AoS to play either game.

Both have rules available for free, and as I pointed out, neither really needs miniatures.

At this moment, in the local market, folks would be more likely to buy AoS miniatures for Kings of War than they would to buy them for Aos - nobody is playing AoS, even in the GW store.

It is not a choice between people buying AoS miniatures for Aos or buying them for KoW - the game for AoS is not one of the choices that people are making.

It is a choice of what miniatures are people using for Kings of War - where the price of the AoS miniatures sends people to Reaper Miniatures instead. (I know that you are a GW fan, but the price of AoS miniatures are ludicrous, while the price of Reaper Bones are not.)

Most people are adapting WHFB models that they already have, and using Bones for the bigger monsters. More WHFB miniatures are being used for Kings of War than Mantic miniatures. There are some armies built with Mantic model, but more are adapting the older armies - in part because they like the models better, and in part because they already have them.

On topic, I would take the claim that AoS is outperforming 40K with an entire salt mine - there are still folks playing WH40K locally, but AoS is a rotting corpse at this point.

The Auld Grump

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wow, you guys are really fething defensive about KoW... I did not expect that at all.

But my point would be that nobody needs to buy AoS to play KoW.

Defensive? Not really. I thought my statement was a pretty neutral description of how I assumed you viewed miniature games.

But thanks for making your point clear. And you're right. No-one needs to buy AoS to play KoW.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

I guess I'll be the only one to say yes. I've played since 4th ed and I gotta say, I enjoy 7th very much. RAW and everything

It is a bloated mess? Sure and I would enjoy some simplification.
But considering that 90% of the draft FAQs were how I was playing it anyway, I like 7th ed just fine. But I'll probably like it when it gets AoS'd.

You should also consider that I have rejected video games and any non-GW table top games, so my opinion is heavily biased. 40K all day every day

OK, fair enough, then!

I don't believe it for a second. As said, we will have a better idea when the ICV2 numbers come, but considering that AOS hasn't had a new releases in months (except for a lame stormcast character), and that 40k has always (well for the last 2 decades) sold a lot more than its fantasy counterpart, it seems highly dubious

I agree.. 40k has always been the work horse for games workshop... And the comment that sales increased and more new players are compared to what?
Because locally AoS destroyed the fantasy games in the area. It is just now started recovering with a lot less and mostly new players.. So yes.. Sales are
up from the train wreak that AoS caused and new players are joining but compared to what numbers?? Before or After End times...

The new edition of 40k will make or break GW.. but seeing what the new president is doing.. I don't think he will allow another Age of Sigmar...
My personal feeling is AoS has a lot of similarity to 4th edition D&D; Not a bad game if not compared to its predecessor; but they did lose a lot of old players
and they only started to recover the larger market sales again until the started with 5th edition.

My original observation of AoS was that it felt like Fantasy for the crowd that already liked 40k.

So it's possible AoS sales have just cannibalised 40k sales, in which case it's more believable it's outselling 40k. They're just selling different models to the same people that were previously spending more on 40k.

I think that's a good insight, AoS being Fantasy for the crowd that already liked 40k. Makes sense given they even added space marines in the form of those sigmar guys.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The difference that you are missing is that KoW can be played with blocks of wood representing the unit, whereas 40k and WMH and so on are all individual model games. KoW, you don't move individual models with squad coherency. Nor are models glorified wound markers.

Which is common across pretty much anything that isn't Warhammer derived, and lets you do some awesome dioramas with your units. Want a tightly packed shield wall at the front, with a loose grouping at the back? Easy. How about a unit forming up round a leader? Some unit of grots with a giant monster in the middle? Or a totem? Cart? Casualties?

You can certainly play Warhammer-derived games with blocks, and use a wound counter instead of casualty removal too.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
My original observation of AoS was that it felt like Fantasy for the crowd that already liked 40k.

So it's possible AoS sales have just cannibalised 40k sales, in which case it's more believable it's outselling 40k. They're just selling different models to the same people that were previously spending more on 40k.

More believable for sure but still terrible for GW they need to grow their customer base not rely on the dwindling pool of existing ones.

hobojebus wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
My original observation of AoS was that it felt like Fantasy for the crowd that already liked 40k.

So it's possible AoS sales have just cannibalised 40k sales, in which case it's more believable it's outselling 40k. They're just selling different models to the same people that were previously spending more on 40k.

More believable for sure but still terrible for GW they need to grow their customer base not rely on the dwindling pool of existing ones.

Maybe their board games can do that? I dunno. I think their board games are overpriced for someone who doesn't already love GW.

Right from the beginning I didn't see AoS as expanding their potential customer base, rather shrinking it because I think it removed some of the diversity between WHFB and 40k.

Things might get a little bit clearer when the next financial report comes around, but GW are great at giving us not-quite-enough information to actually figure out what's going on.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Maybe their board games can do that? I dunno. I think their board games are overpriced for someone who doesn't already love GW.

The contemporary board games are an awful way to reach out to new customers; they are generally poor, overpriced, niche games that are outclassed by so much of the competition. They have a value, but it's generally as an artificially cheap source of mini's to existing fans.

I can't think of any current board game GW is selling that doesn't already have a better, cheaper equivalent in some form.

The fact that you can only get them in GW or FLGS's really doesn't help, when you can get stuff like Star Wars: Imperial Assault, or X-Wing in Waterstones, and most geek friendly stores.

But then if you roll back 15-20 years, a huge amount of people got into GW gaming through the board games. In the UK at least, you could buy Hero Quest, Space Hulk, Blood Bowl in high street and catalog stores; they were mixed right in there with the board games. I'd played with HQ for maybe 5 years before discovering Games Workshop proper; I got it as a birthday present. 20 years later I'm still a gamer, with an overgrown collection (and I still haven't got them painted).

I agree the board games are terrible and not worth the price asked their only value is to existing customers who want the models.

Yeah I agree. I think there was potential there to bring in new customers but it mostly failed in that.

In general I think GW over recent years has only succeeded in shifting where existing customers spend money rather than actually bringing in anyone new.

True or not it does bring AoS into a new prespective. I mean most here just months ago would say AoS was a dead game with no chance of success.

True? Why not.
I enjoyed playing AoS with the new GW pt set.
40k is more for apoc games these days.

 NAVARRO wrote:
True or not it does bring AoS into a new prespective. I mean most here just months ago would say AoS was a dead game with no chance of success.

In The total absence of any proof to the contrary that's the only view to take, when we have reliable numbers we can re-evaluate, but unconfirmed rumours are not facts.

If AoS places in the icv2 charts it's improved, if not it's still failed time will tell.

Well facts are hard to get since GW does not IIRC separate both in therms of reports, and only they have the true numbers.

Meanwhile if AoS was dead on arrival we would not even be discussing rumours at this point.

"GW sells currently more AoS products than 40K ones on a worldwide basis"

I doubt this, but I think its possible, if only due to the vagueness of the statement.

While there are certainly more people playing AoS now, I still see people predominantly buying 40k. However what I have seen is more stores stocking AoS where before they had abandoned WHFB and only carried 40k. Those sales to retailers would create an influx of sales to GW as they create in-store inventory.

IF AoS product are selling "more" than 40k, I have to believe its because GW is making no distinction between retail sales to consumers and wholesale sales to retailers. That'd be some flawed accounting. It is a disconnect from reality to assume these types of sales will automatically lead to a new hieghtened and sustainable volume of consumer purchases.Ultimately that's what matters.

I know GW Portsmouth currently sells far more AOS than 40k by quite a large margin.

All painters and gamers in there are usually AOS too.

So if it's anything to go by, it really wouldn't surprise me.
My 40k spending this year is around £50 or so where as AOS spending is around £800 currently.

I'll say that if it wasn't for Genestealer Cult which brought it about even I'd have spent more money this year on AoS. Once the Generals Compendium dropped it's been picking up significantly. Local slowgrow league with 16 people in it, stores starting to run events, and apparently the local GW guy has said it's been exploding due to the summer campaign.

That said since even when WFB was doing well by company standards it was still being outsold in its entirety by the combined sales of just tactical marines and rhinos. So the odds that it suddenly is selling more than 40k is low. But if they are using a silly metric as has been mentioned earlier in the thread it might not be a factually false statement.

A throwaway clickbait 'rumor' on BoLS has generated 3 pages of discussion here - nice!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

I quit 40k and started Bretonnia for AOS. We have a group of 10 AOS Sigmar players and people are always buying AOS models instead 40k models. As, it's written I cant really see myself getting back into it unless, 8th and Sisters come out.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
According to Taco Bell:

Alcina of TGA wrote:It seems also that GW sells currently more AoS products than 40K ones on a worldwide basis.

On the face of it, that sounds preposterous. 40k has been GW's largest product line for decades, with SM outselling all other product combined.

OTOH, AoS has now settled in as a game with a very low barrier to entry, due to the free rules and units on the GW website, along with the recent GHB.

Could this really be true?

If AoS brought in newbies, as it was designed to, and those newbies started buying, like GW wants them to, then it's entirely possible that this new cohort of new players is outspending the old 40k crowd who already have all the models they'll ever need.

Interesting...So, this means when compared with a better alternative offered 40k was not as appealing?

Grot 6 wrote:Locally.

THAT is the key word in the context. See my illustrious poster that posted right before I did.

My apologies. I read your post 3 times and each time I missed the Locally part. Foot in my mouth as usual.

hobojebus wrote:
In The total absence of any proof to the contrary that's the only view to take, when we have reliable numbers we can re-evaluate, but unconfirmed rumours are not facts.

If AoS places in the icv2 charts it's improved, if not it's still failed time will tell.

Anyone who still things AoS is a "failed" game would be hard pressed to explain how it has such a large and growing community.

Looking at numbers on reddit, one of the most popular websites in the world, and in my opinion a better gauge of popularity and interest than heresay, rumor and anecdotal evidence, the AoS community in little over a year has now grown larger than the WHFB community ever was, and shows no sign of slowing down.

http://redditmetrics.com/r/ageofsigmar#compare=warhammerfantasy

Not only that but the community is much, much larger than community for the Kings of War (which was supposedly the future of fantasy wargaming), and many other games that are allegedly putting GW out of business like Infinity, Malifaux, Bolt Action and many besides.

Not bad for a "failed" game huh?

The reddit chart is amazing.
Atm in our battle group, AoS is strongly neglected.
I find this game is at a better shape than 40k.

motski wrote:
the AoS community in little over a year has now grown larger than the WHFB community ever was, and shows no sign of slowing down.

http://redditmetrics.com/r/ageofsigmar#compare=warhammerfantasy

The WHFB reddit community didn't START until just after WHFB 8th edition was released, which was just after WHFB started its death throes. People aren't going to subscribe to a reddit feed of a game they already stopped playing

Saying AoS is doing better than a game that was dying doesn't really say much. Tracking WHFB popularity through the 80's, 90's and 00's would be much more interesting.

I think it'll be interesting to see if the next financial report is up or neutral growth (I don't really expect it to be down). To me the popularity of AoS is meaningless if it's simply coming at the cost of 40k.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

motski wrote:
the AoS community in little over a year has now grown larger than the WHFB community ever was, and shows no sign of slowing down.

http://redditmetrics.com/r/ageofsigmar#compare=warhammerfantasy

(1) The WHFB reddit community didn't START until just after WHFB 8th edition was released, which was just after WHFB started its death throes. People aren't going to subscribe to a reddit feed of a game they already stopped playing
(2)
Saying AoS is doing better than a game that was dying doesn't really say much. Tracking WHFB popularity through the 80's, 90's and 00's would be much more interesting.
(3)
I think it'll be interesting to see if the next financial report is up or neutral growth (I don't really expect it to be down). To me the popularity of AoS is meaningless if it's simply coming at the cost of 40k.

1) thats not the point at all. if AOE would be a failed game.. then why is this group increasing in size? and that with a unbroken trend?
oh and a growing game is ALWAYS better than a dying one. no matter what the circumstances.
2) You cant play with the past. Sure some nostalgic thoughts are always fine but i personally prefer to play with humans in the present instead of some sweet memories.
3) Why? there have always been people tha eighter play only 40k or Fantasy.

I'd probably throw myself in with the 'I can believe it' crowd, purely on the basis I've had no desire to even touch 40k for a couple of years now, but I'm increasingly tempted to get a small AoS force.

There's just too much stuff to keep up with if you have other interests with 40K right now, and the rules for things I actually care about have mostly been left to rot or poorly patched.

Fortunately since the painting and converting side was always my favourite anyway I've moved onto busts, non-gaming and larger scale stuff.

motski wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
In The total absence of any proof to the contrary that's the only view to take, when we have reliable numbers we can re-evaluate, but unconfirmed rumours are not facts.

If AoS places in the icv2 charts it's improved, if not it's still failed time will tell.

Anyone who still things AoS is a "failed" game would be hard pressed to explain how it has such a large and growing community.

Looking at numbers on reddit, one of the most popular websites in the world, and in my opinion a better gauge of popularity and interest than heresay, rumor and anecdotal evidence, the AoS community in little over a year has now grown larger than the WHFB community ever was, and shows no sign of slowing down.

http://redditmetrics.com/r/ageofsigmar#compare=warhammerfantasy

Not only that but the community is much, much larger than community for the Kings of War (which was supposedly the future of fantasy wargaming), and many other games that are allegedly putting GW out of business like Infinity, Malifaux, Bolt Action and many besides.

Not bad for a "failed" game huh?

Lots of people don't even use social media I play kow and 9th age and I've never used reddit, stopped using Facebook years ago etc.

Social media numbers mean squat because we have zero clue how representative they are.

Sales figures will show a games popularity in comparison to other games on the market, if AoS is in the top five it's recovered after a dismal first year, if not it's still a failure.

It's a very binary situation.

 _ghost_ wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

motski wrote:
the AoS community in little over a year has now grown larger than the WHFB community ever was, and shows no sign of slowing down.

http://redditmetrics.com/r/ageofsigmar#compare=warhammerfantasy

(1) The WHFB reddit community didn't START until just after WHFB 8th edition was released, which was just after WHFB started its death throes. People aren't going to subscribe to a reddit feed of a game they already stopped playing
(2)
Saying AoS is doing better than a game that was dying doesn't really say much. Tracking WHFB popularity through the 80's, 90's and 00's would be much more interesting.
(3)
I think it'll be interesting to see if the next financial report is up or neutral growth (I don't really expect it to be down). To me the popularity of AoS is meaningless if it's simply coming at the cost of 40k.

1) thats not the point at all. if AOE would be a failed game.. then why is this group increasing in size? and that with a unbroken trend?
oh and a growing game is ALWAYS better than a dying one. no matter what the circumstances.
2) You cant play with the past. Sure some nostalgic thoughts are always fine but i personally prefer to play with humans in the present instead of some sweet memories.
3) Why? there have always been people tha eighter play only 40k or Fantasy.

1) I don't think I mentioned anything about overall trends pointing toward success or failure, simply pointing out that comparing to WHFB reddit subscribers to AoS reddit subscribers is not a useful measure. I don't know if AoS is a failed game or not, and less than 4000 reddit subscribers doesn't really convince me one way or the other, it represents only a tiny fraction of the community so much so that I think it's not really a useful measure of anything.

2) We are talking about comparative trends here not nostalgia. My observation is WHFB died with 8th edition. I'm not talking about the quality of the rules of 8th, I'm talking about actual players playing the game. As such, looking at the trend of reddit subscribers within 8th edition vs AoS reddit subscribers seems largely pointless to me. It'd be much more interesting to have an understanding of the rise and fall of WHFB.

3) Because if AoS comes at the cost of 40k sales it simply means GW are selling to the same crowd. I've always contended that GW should improve WHFB for the sake of diversity, not all people that like 40k like WHFB, not all people than like WHFB like 40k. If AoS sales go up and 40k sales go down, it would suggest AoS is just selling different product to the same people, the net effect being GW haven't really improved the diversity of either their range or their customer base. This is why I bought up GW's boardgames earlier, the boardgames were a potential source of diversity but I think they overpriced themselves to the point of only being appealing to existing GW customers.

I would be astonished to find that AoS was outselling 40K.

There was no indication of this in the year end financial results. If the situation has changed so dramatically in the few months since then, it would indicate either a very rapid and probably terminal decline of 40K (probably to be followed by the collapse of GW) or an extraordinarily rapid growth in popularity of a new game that had an acceptable but less than stellar first year.

At any rate, the half year financial statement will tell us something.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I would be astonished to find that AoS was outselling 40K.

There was no indication of this in the year end financial results. If the situation has changed so dramatically in the few months since then, it would indicate either a very rapid and probably terminal decline of 40K (probably to be followed by the collapse of GW) or an extraordinarily rapid growth in popularity of a new game that had an acceptable but less than stellar first year.

At any rate, the half year financial statement will tell us something.

If AoS is finally taking off, then a few months can make a big difference as people get started about buying armies. I'd not be surprised at seeing a decline in 40k, given that GW pushed really hard for 7E, so people's wallets might be exhausted. But the idea of a pending collapse? Not likely.

as hard as it is around here to find AoS players or even products to buy ( I hate online buying) I wouldnt believe here that it is outselling anything at all, let alone 40k which is picking up steam due to kill team.

A few comments were made about the popularity of AoS and how well it's selling. Without proper numbers and just throwing percentages around doesn't mean anything.

While I would love for the NUMBERS to be true, GW hasn't given any numbers at all but percentage numbers. So AoS doing 30% better means what? 30% better of 10 units sold means they sold an extra 3 units.

I am surprised numbers like hundred's of thousands are not being thrown around. Since only percentages are being thrown around and 30% better sounds awesome, but without context what they actually mean and actual numbers I am really worried AoS and 40K for that matter are not really doing as well as GW is hoping.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
My original observation of AoS was that it felt like Fantasy for the crowd that already liked 40k.

So it's possible AoS sales have just cannibalised 40k sales, in which case it's more believable it's outselling 40k. They're just selling different models to the same people that were previously spending more on 40k.

More believable for sure but still terrible for GW they need to grow their customer base not rely on the dwindling pool of existing ones.

Maybe their board games can do that? I dunno. I think their board games are overpriced for someone who doesn't already love GW.

Right from the beginning I didn't see AoS as expanding their potential customer base, rather shrinking it because I think it removed some of the diversity between WHFB and 40k.

That's the thing.

AoS targets new players, those new players have the ability to buy a lot more than old players, who might need one character. or maybe a new box of basing material.

As a 40K player, I would never touch AoS and I don't think there's much cannibalising going on at all.

The one thing that could drive AoS sales is the percentage of new visitors vs recurring, which was the downfall of WHFB: everyone just had everything already, everyone was less and less people by the day and the second hand market was therefore damaging store sales hard.
That and the cheap alternatives from other companies that let you get to where the old players were (2000+ points) for a relatively cheap price.

As a miniature game grows older, so do its users, this brings up the "standard army size" and perceived "minimum investment" to levels which just can't be matched by new players.

And as the users get older, they often reach "sufficient army size" and for most, the only way they keep on buying anything is if they start collecting other armies - this also dries up after a while.


In that game, AoS might very well be driving excellent sales with 5 times less users who spend a lot more (like that new guy who just bought 500 bucks of space wolves, except there aren't many such new guys).

hobojebus wrote:

Lots of people don't even use social media I play kow and 9th age and I've never used reddit, stopped using Facebook years ago etc.

Social media numbers mean squat because we have zero clue how representative they are.

Sales figures will show a games popularity in comparison to other games on the market, if AoS is in the top five it's recovered after a dismal first year, if not it's still a failure.

It's a very binary situation.

It's not unreasonable to suppose a similar proportion of people playing different games use it, and so can be used to gauge relative popularity. I think it means more than the rumors and heresay thrown around here. So much for your "dismal first year" - as you can see from the link I posted above, the community grew to being bigger than the WHFB community it had replaced.

As for the icv2 charts they don't reflect sales in GW stores and are restricted to Northern America, so its usefulness in indicating the success of AoS is very limited. Is KoW a failed game because it doesn't make it to icv2? is ninth age?

morgoth wrote:
AoS targets new players, those new players have the ability to buy a lot more than old players, who might need one character. or maybe a new box of basing material.

As a 40K player, I would never touch AoS and I don't think there's much cannibalising going on at all.

Agree to disagree I guess. I don't see new players excited for AoS, I just see existing 40k players buying it. Obviously not ALL existing 40k players are making the switch, but I think they greatly outnumber actual new customers.

It's obviously not a bad thing to get existing customers spending more, money is money, but wargamers often have finite money so flooding the market with things the same players like is going to be less effective than aiming for a larger base of players. It also makes you more susceptible to a loss in your customer base hurting your revenue.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Davor wrote:
A few comments were made about the popularity of AoS and how well it's selling. Without proper numbers and just throwing percentages around doesn't mean anything.

While I would love for the NUMBERS to be true, GW hasn't given any numbers at all but percentage numbers. So AoS doing 30% better means what? 30% better of 10 units sold means they sold an extra 3 units.

I am surprised numbers like hundred's of thousands are not being thrown around. Since only percentages are being thrown around and 30% better sounds awesome, but without context what they actually mean and actual numbers I am really worried AoS and 40K for that matter are not really doing as well as GW is hoping.

Wait, where did 30% come from?

I haven't heard any numbers at all, percentages or otherwise.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

motski wrote:
It's not unreasonable to suppose a similar proportion of people playing different games use it, and so can be used to gauge relative popularity.

It's not unreasonable to suppose that the proportions are wildly off. Really, the AoS reddit and WHFB reddit are on the order of a few thousand people, that's a tiny drop in the ocean of wargamers and thus massively susceptible to error.

So no, it's not a useful gauge at all, unless you assume WHFB and AoS players both have equal propensity to subscribe to a subreddit, which I think is a pretty far stretch.

motski wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

Lots of people don't even use social media I play kow and 9th age and I've never used reddit, stopped using Facebook years ago etc.

Social media numbers mean squat because we have zero clue how representative they are.

Sales figures will show a games popularity in comparison to other games on the market, if AoS is in the top five it's recovered after a dismal first year, if not it's still a failure.

It's a very binary situation.

It's not unreasonable to suppose a similar proportion of people playing different games use it, and so can be used to gauge relative popularity. I think it means more than the rumors and heresay thrown around here. So much for your "dismal first year" - as you can see from the link I posted above, the community grew to being bigger than the WHFB community it had replaced.

As for the icv2 charts they don't reflect sales in GW stores and are restricted to Northern America, so its usefulness in indicating the success of AoS is very limited. Is KoW a failed game because it doesn't make it to icv2? is ninth age?

As GW don't show how their sales are split icv2 is our best none partisan source for sales figures.

And again I'm willing to bet the vast majority of players don't even use reddit so it's meaningless, if every wargamer had an account then you could draw a conclusion but a few thousand out of millions is not good representation.

This would really be astonishing.
Nobody here in our gaming group pays attention to AOS anymore.
Our AoS league started quite nicely.
But then a Sigmarite dragon emerged at the battlefield. Very powerful and with his special abilities he was able to decimate the enemy quickly. The other armies lost confidence and fled. It appears that these armies will not come back anytime soon.
This seems to be the end of AoS here ATM.

 wuestenfux wrote:
This would really be astonishing.
Nobody here in our gaming group pays attention to AOS anymore.
Our AoS league started quite nicely.
But then a Sigmarite dragon emerged at the battlefield. Very powerful and with his special abilities he was able to decimate the enemy quickly. The other armies lost confidence and fled. It appears that these armies will not come back anytime soon.
This seems to be the end of AoS here ATM.

First time I played a Stardrake I managed to kill it first turn

I'm sad to hear your whole gaming group gave up after the first challenging build, but if you're having fun with whatever you play now it's all good.

There are so many tournaments in the UK the scene has become really vibrant. As stated at the start of this thread, I don't think AoS is selling more since the GSC came out, but I can definitely see it having happened over the summer.

 Bottle wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
This would really be astonishing.
Nobody here in our gaming group pays attention to AOS anymore.
Our AoS league started quite nicely.
But then a Sigmarite dragon emerged at the battlefield. Very powerful and with his special abilities he was able to decimate the enemy quickly. The other armies lost confidence and fled. It appears that these armies will not come back anytime soon.
This seems to be the end of AoS here ATM.

First time I played a Stardrake I managed to kill it first turn

I'm sad to hear your whole gaming group gave up after the first challenging build, but if you're having fun with whatever you play now it's all good.

There are so many tournaments in the UK the scene has become really vibrant. As stated at the start of this thread, I don't think AoS is selling more since the GSC came out, but I can definitely see it having happened over the summer.

No more AoS here.
We enjoy other games, mostly WMH and still 40k.

Good for you. It'd be nice to hear from a few more German users to get a feel for the AoS scene there. It is growing from strength to strength in the UK however.

 Bottle wrote:
Good for you. It'd be nice to hear from a few more German users to get a feel for the AoS scene there. It is growing from strength to strength in the UK however.

Okay.

AoS seems to be dead here. We had actually a strong WHFB group. They've put their armies on hold.

 wuestenfux wrote:
We had actually a strong WHFB group. They've put their armies on hold.

For us, it was the ScheiBe of 8E that killed WFB in my local group. We've got our armies, but I'm not sure if people want to restart.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
We had actually a strong WHFB group. They've put their armies on hold.

For us, it was the ScheiBe of 8E that killed WFB in my local group. We've got our armies, but I'm not sure if people want to restart.

You should go for it! AoS is heaps of fun and your Dogs of War will be well represented within the Order grand alliance.

Yeah, I'm good to restart with AoS, but the others still have a sour taste from Warhammer Fantasy. I'm pretty salty on Ninth not even starting Mercs. And the splitters wanting KoW meant we didn't have cuonsensus. But yeah, I did a rename of things in Order for Dogs of War, and I'd have been fine with it.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Wait, where did 30% come from?

I haven't heard any numbers at all, percentages or otherwise.

My memory is not that good so I could be wrong again, but I thought I read a few months ago, or was it around June that someone said or GW said in their annual report or before the annual report that AoS numbers were up 30% over fantasy sales or something like that. I guess GW was trying to play the numbers to make it look great. It got alot of people hyped and then were saying therefore how much a success AoS is because of the 30%. Somewhere around here on Dakka. Just not sure where. Sorry for that.

Davor wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Wait, where did 30% come from?

I haven't heard any numbers at all, percentages or otherwise.

My memory is not that good so I could be wrong again, but I thought I read a few months ago, or was it around June that someone said or GW said in their annual report or before the annual report that AoS numbers were up 30% over fantasy sales or something like that. I guess GW was trying to play the numbers to make it look great. It got alot of people hyped and then were saying therefore how much a success AoS is because of the 30%. Somewhere around here on Dakka. Just not sure where. Sorry for that.

Yeah you're going to need to find a source because as far as I'm aware GW have never said 30%.

In their annual report they simply said that finished the year AoS at a higher rate than WHFB, it was a very vague statement that had no numbers attached and could have been calculated in several different ways.

You might be confused, GW did state new releases make up 30% of their total revenue, but that tells you nothing about how AoS specifically is doing. I remember making the argument that most of AoS's new releases came out in the latter part of the year which would naturally result in a higher rate of sales for AoS at the end of the year and may be why they made the statement about AoS finishing the year at a higher rate than WHFB.

You might also be thinking of Forge World, GW's core citadel sales dropped by 12% but it was offset by a 28% rise in Forge World's sales.

But I don't think anyone in the know has said AoS is doing 30% better than WHFB.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But I don't think anyone in the know has said AoS is doing 30% better than WHFB.

I believe GW had said that AoS was outperforming WFB last year, even before the GHB was released. But I don't recall any specific % stated.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But I don't think anyone in the know has said AoS is doing 30% better than WHFB.

I believe GW had said that AoS was outperforming WFB last year, even before the GHB was released. But I don't recall any specific % stated.

Well the 2016 report I believe was before the GHB, so as I said in the 2nd paragraph of my post...

In their annual report they simply said that finished the year AoS at a higher rate than WHFB, it was a very vague statement that had no numbers attached and could have been calculated in several different ways.

Here is the exact statement...

"as we released more of the range in the second half of the year, we finished the year with sales of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar at a higher rate than Warhammer has enjoyed for several years."

But they offer no method for calculation, noting that "higher rate" typically doesn't mean "overall sales for the year" but rather it means at that point in time you are selling things faster.

They literally could have just taken the last month of AoS sales and compared it to WHFB over the previous "several" years (whatever that means) and the statement would still be true.

It's still a fairly positive sentence because the comparison will include all of the End Times which had books sell out on release day and multiple models which made it to GW's top 10 kits of 2015.

You're right that it is still quite vague. Hopefully for the next FY report they will be able to say something more concrete.

The thing that struck me about how GW worded it in the financial statement is that it was very non-committal. I often write technical documents for work and that's the sort of sentence I'd expect from someone who's trying to hide something.

If it wasn't written in a financial report I probably would have just assumed it was written by someone who wasn't good at writing concisely. Using the words "finished the year....at a higher rate than .... for several years" really allows you to twist the numbers in many ways.

The dodgiest thing they could have done was taken the rate of sales last month of AoS for that financial year and compared it to the average of WHFB over several years.... the statement would be true but also massively biased. I'm not saying that's what they DID do, but the statement they made allows for it.

That said I fully expect AoS to be outselling WHFB if you take WHFB's numbers for any time during 8th, except maybe the couple of months where end time came out. My understanding was WHFB was struggling back in 7th, but 8th just absolutely killed it. I know some people like the 8th ed rules, but the simple fact it...

a) pissed off a lot of veterans which made them stop buying.

b) raised the requirements for new gamers, which stopped new blood.

I don't have any trouble believing WHFB in 8th edition was barely selling anything.

But that doesn't mean the potential wasn't there.

Herzlos wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Maybe their board games can do that? I dunno. I think their board games are overpriced for someone who doesn't already love GW.

The contemporary board games are an awful way to reach out to new customers; they are generally poor, overpriced, niche games that are outclassed by so much of the competition. They have a value, but it's generally as an artificially cheap source of mini's to existing fans.

I can't think of any current board game GW is selling that doesn't already have a better, cheaper equivalent in some form.

The fact that you can only get them in GW or FLGS's really doesn't help, when you can get stuff like Star Wars: Imperial Assault, or X-Wing in Waterstones, and most geek friendly stores.

But then if you roll back 15-20 years, a huge amount of people got into GW gaming through the board games. In the UK at least, you could buy Hero Quest, Space Hulk, Blood Bowl in high street and catalog stores; they were mixed right in there with the board games. I'd played with HQ for maybe 5 years before discovering Games Workshop proper; I got it as a birthday present. 20 years later I'm still a gamer, with an overgrown collection (and I still haven't got them painted).

A good boardgame to get younger kids interested into GW products was Space crusade, easy to built board pieces simple rules and lots of fun, all the recent good board games set in the GW world were made by FFG

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yeah, I'm good to restart with AoS, but the others still have a sour taste from Warhammer Fantasy. I'm pretty salty on Ninth not even starting Mercs. And the splitters wanting KoW meant we didn't have cuonsensus. But yeah, I did a rename of things in Order for Dogs of War, and I'd have been fine with it.

The same for our. Some refuse to play AoS. They think about KoW but that's it. There is no consensus either.

morgoth wrote:

The one thing that could drive AoS sales is the percentage of new visitors vs recurring, which was the downfall of WHFB: everyone just had everything already, everyone was less and less people by the day and the second hand market was therefore damaging store sales hard.

I think that's more a price/rules/bloat thing than a gamers nature thing. When I started, back in the 90's, everyone had at least 2 armies for each system and was always adding stuff. It was rare for someone to only build a single army and stop. Then the rules started to age and the prices started going up, and the armies started getting much bigger, so people seemed to cut down. WHFB didn't really get much new so people stopped expanding.

Now, obviously it's easier to get someone to try something new by squatting everything and starting again, but they could have done all sorts of things in WHFB to get people interested again, like the End Times before people realised what was about to happen.

Bear in mind people aren't just buying AoS minis to play AoS.

Plenty are buying the minis to play 9th age and Kings of War.

Also look at how ridiculously successful Total War: Warhammer has been, that's also getting more people into the fantasy side of the hobby.

Herzlos wrote:

morgoth wrote:

The one thing that could drive AoS sales is the percentage of new visitors vs recurring, which was the downfall of WHFB: everyone just had everything already, everyone was less and less people by the day and the second hand market was therefore damaging store sales hard.

I think that's more a price/rules/bloat thing than a gamers nature thing. When I started, back in the 90's, everyone had at least 2 armies for each system and was always adding stuff. It was rare for someone to only build a single army and stop. Then the rules started to age and the prices started going up, and the armies started getting much bigger, so people seemed to cut down. WHFB didn't really get much new so people stopped expanding.

Now, obviously it's easier to get someone to try something new by squatting everything and starting again, but they could have done all sorts of things in WHFB to get people interested again, like the End Times before people realised what was about to happen.

This. I had 8 WFB armies at one point. When 8th edition dropped and the £22.50 army book arrived alongside bigger armies, I anticipated what was coming and how much the army books alone would cost to update, so I sold the choice pieces of each army and threw the rest away. Only kept the two I'd got a strong attachment to, which got repurposed into other games. The funds from that paid for all the historical armies I'd always wanted. BIG armies too.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

If one goes to that line you don't really need minis for AOS either. Yet people keep buying minis both for AOS and KOW...

tneva82 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

If one goes to that line you don't really need minis for AOS either. Yet people keep buying minis both for AOS and KOW...

Very true. Just because its a block game, its requirement for minis is no different from any GW game.

The original wargame, Kriegsspiel, is played with wooden blocks to represent regiments. It's also played on maps rather than a 3D tabletop.

I would not be surprised if this was true, especially if GW refer to 30k separate from 40k.

I dont see AoS played much at all, apart from in Warhammer world, but I do know that the stockists that I frequent are selling boatloads of the new AoS stuff and have been since the new stuff was released.

There could well be plenty of people buying the minis but not playing the games.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But I don't think anyone in the know has said AoS is doing 30% better than WHFB.

I believe GW had said that AoS was outperforming WFB last year, even before the GHB was released. But I don't recall any specific % stated.

Well the 2016 report I believe was before the GHB, so as I said in the 2nd paragraph of my post...

In their annual report they simply said that finished the year AoS at a higher rate than WHFB, it was a very vague statement that had no numbers attached and could have been calculated in several different ways.

Here is the exact statement...

"as we released more of the range in the second half of the year, we finished the year with sales of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar at a higher rate than Warhammer has enjoyed for several years."

But they offer no method for calculation, noting that "higher rate" typically doesn't mean "overall sales for the year" but rather it means at that point in time you are selling things faster.

They literally could have just taken the last month of AoS sales and compared it to WHFB over the previous "several" years (whatever that means) and the statement would still be true.

Bottle wrote:It's still a fairly positive sentence because the comparison will include all of the End Times which had books sell out on release day and multiple models which made it to GW's top 10 kits of 2015.

You're right that it is still quite vague. Hopefully for the next FY report they will be able to say something more concrete.

And there is no way to tell how many of those sales were people panic purchasing to fill out those WFB armies they had on the back burner, or rounding off collections, or even starting another army specifically for use in another system or retrogaming. Had my finances been up to it, I'd have bought a ton of stuff for 6th Ed. WFB as that's what I'm playing now, and those numbers would have been a boon for AOS sales, as that is what it is listed under.

Yep, and we don't know how much X-Wing is bought by people to run in homebrew battlefleet gothic games. In both cases there is probably not much point in bringing it into the conversation.

We don't know how much of it was bought by old veterans and we don't know how much was bought by new blood. We can give anecdotes either way but as most wargamers live in a bubble (in that they frequent with similarly minded wargamers) any anecdote is likely to be fairly unrepresentative of the wider scene.

At the end of the day, sales figures are still one of the best metrics in measuring the popularity of a game. We have nothing concrete for AoS, but we are getting rumours suggesting it is doing very well. Time will tell.

The interesting thing here is Lord of the Rings. Remember how nobody played LotR, except that it was a better game than WFB? And it sold amazingly well? Right.

 Bottle wrote:
Yep, and we don't know how much X-Wing is bought by people to run in homebrew battlefleet gothic games. In both cases there is probably not much point in bringing it into the conversation.

It's specifically important for WHFB/AoS because it's a source of income that's going to dry up quickly.

We don't know how much of it was bought by old veterans and we don't know how much was bought by new blood. We can give anecdotes either way but as most wargamers live in a bubble (in that they frequent with similarly minded wargamers) any anecdote is likely to be fairly unrepresentative of the wider scene.

At the end of the day, sales figures are still one of the best metrics in measuring the popularity of a game. We have nothing concrete for AoS, but we are getting rumours suggesting it is doing very well. Time will tell.

My thought that AoS is going to appeal mostly to existing 40k players isn't based purely off anecdotal evidence.

Some of my thoughts are anecdotal based on what I've seen on dakka, the people most excited about AoS seeming to be existing 40k fans. Additionally it seems if AoS did reasonably well last year, it suggests to me that it's mostly being bought by 40k veterans because 40k took an almost equal hit as AoS saw an increase.

That's really the only circumstance I can see AoS outselling 40k globally, people reducing their 40k purchases while increasing their AoS purchases rather than AoS actually growing larger than 40k was 1 or 2 years ago.


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 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The interesting thing here is Lord of the Rings. Remember how nobody played LotR, except that it was a better game than WFB? And it sold amazingly well? Right.

I'm not sure if you're trying to be sarcastic or not?

LotR both sold extremely well and was popular in gaming circles back when the movies were popular. Locally it outnumbered both WHFB and 40k as far as people playing games (which had large communities at the time as well). Things dried up when the movies ended, when GW stagnated the range and when the prices skyrocketed.

If it's unknowable I don't see the worth in adding it to the discussion. And your example seems a prime bit of anecdotal evidence to me. Care to explain how it's anything more? For what it's worth I am one of the biggest AoS posters here on the forums and I am a WHFB player that made the transition over. I am not a 40k player and haven't been for a long time (since 5th Edition).

@ASS - You being Oz/NZ, where LotR was filmed, has given you an unusual perspective on LotR. Here in the US, the 40k and WFB players said that LotR wasn't selling, all numbers to the contrary. Because they weren't playing it.

 Bottle wrote:
If it's unknowable I don't see the worth in adding it to the discussion. And your example seems a prime bit of anecdotal evidence to me. Care to explain how it's anything more? For what it's worth I am one of the biggest AoS posters here on the forums and I am a WHFB player that made the transition over. I am not a 40k player and haven't been for a long time (since 5th Edition).

Well it's not unknowable that 40k took a dive proportional to the increase in AoS last year, we just don't know what the dollar value of that change was.

EDIT: Unless AoS really didn't outsell WHFB for that year which I guess is also a possibility.


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 JohnHwangDD wrote:
@ASS - You being Oz/NZ, where LotR was filmed, has given you an unusual perspective on LotR. Here in the US, the 40k and WFB players said that LotR wasn't selling, all numbers to the contrary. Because they weren't playing it.

Just so you know, Australians don't consider NZ to be the same place as Australia, there's 1300ish miles of Pacific ocean separating New Zealand from us and we don't even share the same currency And I know you yanks think we all sound the same, but the accent is actually completely different

That's not what I was referring to. It's unknowable how much AoS miniatures are being bought by worried WHFB veterans as another poster commented.

@ASS - I know that Oz & NZ are different places. Oz has drop bears. NZ has the All Blacks! However, both are on the wrong side of the equator, hence the huge pricing jumps compared to things that don't cross that line!

NZ has even worse pricing than Oz.

But I know when I see a NZ movie I consider a foreign movie as much as any other I don't think I even knew LotR was filmed in NZ until some time after I saw FotR.

I'm sure a lot of people played LotR globally but again it's one of those things it's hard to gauge interest outside of your own city. Where I lived in Pennsylvania it didn't seem like any form of GW gaming was popular. But people didn't just come up with the idea LotR had good rules but then not actually play it

These days LotR is dead out here, but apparently in other places it's currently thriving.

Yeah. The main point is that people assume a game isn't popular if they aren't currently playing it.

 Bottle wrote:
Yep, and we don't know how much X-Wing is bought by people to run in homebrew battlefleet gothic games. In both cases there is probably not much point in bringing it into the conversation.

We don't know how much of it was bought by old veterans and we don't know how much was bought by new blood. We can give anecdotes either way but as most wargamers live in a bubble (in that they frequent with similarly minded wargamers) any anecdote is likely to be fairly unrepresentative of the wider scene.

At the end of the day, sales figures are still one of the best metrics in measuring the popularity of a game. We have nothing concrete for AoS, but we are getting rumours suggesting it is doing very well. Time will tell.

Yet I have also seen rumors that AoS is selling very badly indeed.

Can you guess which rumor comes closer to my personal observations?

I have also seen more boxes of AoS sold to folks playing Blood Angels than to people that want to play AoS.

It may be based more on locale than anything else, but I very much doubt that AoS is selling all that well - selling better than 8th edition? Perhaps - but that has more to do with 8th edition doing very badly than with AoS doing very well.

Locally, 8th edition killed the game - folks were already making the switch to Kings of War by the time GW rolled out the End Times.

40K does still have players, but the latest edition of that game has also damaged the brand - there are fewer playing this edition than the previous edition. (But only the one edition - WHFB started sliding in 7th edition, though 8th edition turned that slide into a fall.)

The Auld Grump - at a guess, and on a local basis only, Kings of War has about 2/3 of the audience that 7th had - but more than 8th edition.

In GW's financials 8th edition was touted as their means to correct the sliding sales of late 7th edition. It (obviously) didn't work so they did end times limited edition books and kits for one last feed at the trough and then the game got the axe.

Locally there are two stores that still sell GW stuff (one is a tiny single employee GW store). One of them (not the GW) runs weekly AoS and KoW leagues and they both get about the same number of people. Though both get twice as many as the last few months of their WHFB league nights. Though both pale in comparison to the WHFB player base near the end of 6th and into early 7th. I don't think those days are coming back, ever.

I imagine this might be true of many places. It will be interesting to see what effect FFG's ranked up fantasy game has on this equation.

 frozenwastes wrote:
In GW's financials 8th edition was touted as their means to correct the sliding sales of late 7th edition. It (obviously) didn't work so they did end times limited edition books and kits for one last feed at the trough and then the game got the axe.

Locally there are two stores that still sell GW stuff (one is a tiny single employee GW store). One of them (not the GW) runs weekly AoS and KoW leagues and they both get about the same number of people. Though both get twice as many as the last few months of their WHFB league nights. Though both pale in comparison to the WHFB player base near the end of 6th and into early 7th. I don't think those days are coming back, ever.

I imagine this might be true of many places. It will be interesting to see what effect FFG's ranked up fantasy game has on this equation.

It is also worth mentioning that folks using GW figures in KoW do not much boost KoW sales - the rules for KoW, even in print form, cost less than an army book for 40K....

The Auld Grump

 frozenwastes wrote:
In GW's financials 8th edition was touted as their means to correct the sliding sales of late 7th edition. It (obviously) didn't work so they did end times limited edition books and kits for one last feed at the trough and then the game got the axe.

Locally there are two stores that still sell GW stuff (one is a tiny single employee GW store). One of them (not the GW) runs weekly AoS and KoW leagues and they both get about the same number of people. Though both get twice as many as the last few months of their WHFB league nights. Though both pale in comparison to the WHFB player base near the end of 6th and into early 7th. I don't think those days are coming back, ever.

I imagine this might be true of many places. It will be interesting to see what effect FFG's ranked up fantasy game has on this equation.

The glory days of 6th Ed. could EASILY come back, but GW wouldn't make the steps necessary to do so. First, they'd have to change pricing. THEN they'd have to get a balanced ruleset. THEN they'd have to actually spend money advertising it to grow the customer base. Say what you will about certain army books, 6th was that popular for a reason. The days of battalions and 20 man regiment boxed sets made it easy to get into the game, but 7th came and sat balance on its face. 8th came with special rules to fix special rules that overrode special rules, and encouraged the 50+ man behemoths that dominated the game. When your buy in for a single regiment is $25 US for a box of 10 x 5+ boxed sets, you see where it went off the rails. Also, army books that were priced the same as rule books from less than 10 years prior.

Sure, WFB6 was cheaper, but just look at this magnificent beast!

I don't even play Orks, but I want one!

No, it's not so much the price of 6E vs 8E - it's the rules disaster that's 8E.

@TheAuldGrump that's the whole point. Our experiences are the exact polar opposite. So who's right? Without sales figures it is difficult to say. There are rumors supporting both sides too. Now I will point out there is a definite chronological progression in the rumors of it doing badly, followed by the Ironjawz release being popular, followed by GW's positive spin in the report (which you can choose to take with salt) and now these rumors that it is doing better than 40k at some point. Still we are going to have to wait till we get some more concrete facts from somewhere.

I think it's irrelevant if AoS miniatures are at times being sold to be played in other games. That is something true of all miniature ranges and at AoS tournaments other miniature ranges are popular too. To what extent it happens is going to be purely anecdotal without any numbers to back it up. If you frequent KOW clubs and tournaments you will obviously be exposed to more of it.

And saying that, this thread has never been truly about if AoS is being played more than 40k or KOW. It's about if the range is selling more than 40k and in that discussion what percentage the sales contribute to the AoS player base/collectors/players of other games doesn't matter too much in my opinion.

If you really want to look into which game is being played more I suggest looking at tournament numbers across the UK being a good measure.

I guess I'm not all that impressed with the surfing Orc

It's almost indicative of how things have shifted for GW, they've gone from trying to produce a good game with good models to just producing display shelf models, many of which are wholly inappropriate for gaming because they're a nightmare to transport.

I've never really liked how both 40k and WHFB became overly focused on the big stuff. Back when I started WHFB most armies had 1 big scary thing, maybe 2 at most. It was good because it made those big scary things look cool and imposing relative to all the small stuff.

The Orc is meh. The dragon is awesome!

But point taken on GW moving from 25mm to 28mm to 30mm to HUGE GIANT AWESOME models

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I've never really liked how both 40k and WHFB became overly focused on the big stuff. Back when I started WHFB most armies had 1 big scary thing, maybe 2 at most. It was good because it made those big scary things look cool and imposing relative to all the small stuff.

You should look into AoS at 1000 points if you are interested, as it is exactly as you describe and from what I can see an old 6th Edition army is about the same size. One monster or other behemoth, supported by small regiments of troops (usually not going over 30 models). The game is also super fun. :-)

Eh, if it had rules put out that were backwards compatible I'd run it, but I'd rather see a horde of Orcs honestly.

Hmm, well I can't say I believe AoS to be outselling the juggernaut that is 40k but it's certainly doing well for itself.

Models keep appearing "temporarily out of stock" on the website, AoS events have been sold out, large competitions have large AoS player bases (though usually half the size of the 40k groups), Reddit and Facebook has a constant stream of posters either stating they're just getting into tabletop or returning after a decade while the fantasy forums usually see new members playing both 9th and AoS or branching out into AoS.

So there's plenty of evidence to support AoS' going strong but nothing really but clickbait to say it's triumphing over 40k.

Also, I like the bigger direction of the models. They survive better from accidents rather than the tiny figures whose heads or limbs pop off and are lost. I wonder how survivable the Warmaster mini models were in that case? (I quite liked those models)

Doesn't matter if one is outselling the other, neither has addressed the most common reason (excluding price) in my area for not starting up an army, might as well wait for the next edition-itis.

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar doesn't feel like a permanent setting, and people have picked up on that.

Oh, how so?

Baron Klatz wrote:
Hmm, well I can't say I believe AoS to be outselling the juggernaut that is 40k but it's certainly doing well for itself.

Models keep appearing "temporarily out of stock" on the website, AoS events have been sold out, large competitions have large AoS player bases (though usually half the size of the 40k groups), Reddit and Facebook has a constant stream of posters either stating they're just getting into tabletop or returning after a decade while the fantasy forums usually see new members playing both 9th and AoS or branching out into AoS.

So there's plenty of evidence to support AoS' going strong but nothing really but clickbait to say it's triumphing over 40k.

Also, I like the bigger direction of the models. They survive better from accidents rather than the tiny figures whose heads or limbs pop off and are lost. I wonder how survivable the Warmaster mini models were in that case? (I quite liked those models)

All that means is they are only making small batches at a time so they don't have piles of stock hanging around, storage space costs money.

Baron Klatz wrote:
Hmm, well I can't say I believe AoS to be outselling the juggernaut that is 40k but it's certainly doing well for itself.

I wouldn't even say it's doing it well. When has GW not tooted their own horn? I just find it funny anything Mr Roundtree is saying, I have to take it with salt as well since it's all "spin" words. If AoS is doing well, just come out and say it. Since they are using spin words and not giving out actual numbers a lot of salt needs to be taken. This is not just for AoS but 40K and GW on a whole.

Models keep appearing "temporarily out of stock" on the website,

I always hate being cynical or negative, but I see this as the Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo syndrome. In other words those companies only gave stores what 5 or 10 copies of the console so of course they will sell out right away. This way they can legally claim all their stores sold on within hours of being sold. Of course they will sell out when you under produce demand. GW is not stupid. They know what the demand is now, and they all they are doing is creating artificial hype in my opinion. Yes we will not see anymore Special Editions of The Hobbit or Dreadfleet. GW has learned their lesson now and now under produce instead of over produce.

So just because it's "temporarily out of stock" doesn't mean it sells well, it just sold enough for GW, just like how they like to sell the only 1000 copies of something.

Baron Klatz wrote:


Also, I like the bigger direction of the models. They survive better from accidents rather than the tiny figures whose heads or limbs pop off and are lost. I wonder how survivable the Warmaster mini models were in that case? (I quite liked those models)

Are you seriously arguing that AoS models are better because they are more resistant to falling? This is borderline satire.

And, the general trend of huge models is deleterious. Carry an army from point A to point B becomes cumbersome.
I think is a good metaphor for the rules, BTW.

Baron Klatz wrote:
Also, I like the bigger direction of the models. They survive better from accidents rather than the tiny figures whose heads or limbs pop off and are lost. I wonder how survivable the Warmaster mini models were in that case? (I quite liked those models)

I assume you're being sarcastic

Small models are usually tougher because the mass of an object scales with the cube of its scale while the strength scales with the square of its scale, i.e. things get heavier faster than they get stronger as they get bigger. If your small models are breaking more easily, look to your glue, not the size of the model

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

Baron Klatz wrote:


Also, I like the bigger direction of the models. They survive better from accidents rather than the tiny figures whose heads or limbs pop off and are lost. I wonder how survivable the Warmaster mini models were in that case? (I quite liked those models)

Are you seriously arguing that AoS models are better because they are more resistant to falling? This is borderline satire.

Actually, that's the main non-ideological reason not to buy proper recasts and keep to GW plastic.
At least when your miniatures fall, they stay in one piece

Not that I think bigger miniatures withstand falls better... to the contrary the tiny pieces break off more easily.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Baron Klatz wrote:
Also, I like the bigger direction of the models. They survive better from accidents rather than the tiny figures whose heads or limbs pop off and are lost. I wonder how survivable the Warmaster mini models were in that case? (I quite liked those models)

I assume you're being sarcastic

Small models are usually tougher because the mass of an object scales with the cube of its scale while the strength scales with the square of its scale, i.e. things get heavier faster than they get stronger as they get bigger. If your small models are breaking more easily, look to your glue, not the size of the model

That's not quite correct.

Small models are generally full where large models are generally empty.
And no, the strength does not scale with the square of its scale or anything... that's just not how it works.
Assuming real existing plastic models from GW, the big ones which are empty will have a better surface to weight ratio and fall slower, although this is not visible to the naked eye.
As they are empty, they're also a lot more likely to break, since the tiny tiny seams that join the walls of your empty cavity have to absorb shocks relative to the total weight of the model, which is a lot trickier when there's more weight per bonded surface area.

Back in the real world, if you glue a space marine with proper poly cement, no amount of falling off a table should be able to separate the pieces OR alter the surface details significantly.

What you'll see is a space marine glued with superglue coming apart when falling, because superglue has absolutely no tolerance to vibrations, being very rigid and not elastic at all, so the bond tends to break at the first fall on a non-elastic surface.

For bigger models, Wraithknights routinely break "antennas" and gun tips when falling and properly glued, so do Tervigons.

The big summary is: if you don't want your plastic to be broken, glue it with superglue, it'll break before your plastic does... or just glue stuff properly and don't drop it on the floor.

morgoth wrote:
That's not quite correct.

It's obviously going to depend on the model but generally smaller models stand up to falls better. I know what you mean about larger models being hollow, but even if they have a better strength to weight ratio from being hollow they're still going to have more kinetic energy which gets absorbed by whatever part of the model hits the ground since the model as a whole is reasonably rigid. If stuff is breaking off just glue it with polystyrene cement, epoxy or other more rubbery glue because superglue has no capacity to absorb energy.

If you drop something like this...

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-PL/Deathlords-Nagash

...on the floor it's going to be screwed regardless of what it's glued together with.

But whatever, I find it a wholly insane argument that you would prefer bigger models because you think they're more resilient to damage

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sure, WFB6 was cheaper, but just look at this magnificent beast!

I don't even play Orks, but I want one!

No, it's not so much the price of 6E vs 8E - it's the rules disaster that's 8E.

Actually, I very much dislike that particular figure. (Loathe comes closer.)

The technical execution is excellent, but taken as a figure, the thing is a cluttered mess. Give me the old orc chieftain on wyvern any day.

The Auld Grump

Agree. That model is a chubby mess.

Huh, I love it. It feels perfectly orky and intimidating. Each their own.

Yeah I love the cabbage too. My only wish is it were more posable as when you're playing a game against two cabbages they both look the same even with the head swap, (an open mouthed maw would have been awesome.)

@Davor, I suppose that's possible on GW keeping their productions smaller though the fact that the "out of stock" is not an uncommon sign across the model lines at least means their sale rates are good.

As for my opinion on bigger models, eh maybe it might just be my glue. I've just been luckier with big model falls than small models I guess.

Funny. Bigger models have more mass than small ones. and bgi models also have a lot of thin parts. As small and big models are made of the same material i dont see why bigger ones should be in a better situation as small ones

Baron Klatz wrote:
@Davor, I suppose that's possible on GW keeping their productions smaller though the fact that the "out of stock" is not an uncommon sign across the model lines at least means their sale rates are good.

Not necessarily. Inventory management is a thing and some firms are better at it than others. The thing is that GW has a constantly changing field of SKUs resulting in a mess of fulfilled/unfulfilled orders, warehousing, storage, etc. Several years ago they touted a new inventory management system and it was shortly afterwards that we started to see random outages. As small as GW is, as small as their manufacturing capacity is, they have to choose what to run each day/week/month. It takes time to change out casting runs and if somebody underestimates demand for something based upon previous experience, instant shortage. They don't have a dedicated machine for each spru.

Does this mean something is selling like hotcakes? Maybe, or it could mean that they planned to sell X number (10,100,1000) of a model until it's up for another production run in X number of days/weeks/months and they actually sold one more than that. Manufacturing runs are usually mapped-out well in advance so if something gets shorted, they have to put something on the backburner to run the old product again or just ignore it til its slot comes up.

Rofl AoS outselling 40k worldwide, yeah I doubt it. AoS could not even out sell 40k in the 4-6 month period when no new 40k product was released.

It certainly is not outselling DW or GsC and the local GW and Indies sold more prospero on launch day than they have AoS starters in the last 12 months.
Small sample size but the fact the local GW manager has not been fired after AoS finshed the last one off shows GW still know that generals or not aos is a lemon.
AoS real health or status should show soon as they will have burned thorough all the product planned and pre produced before the launch and subsequent tanking. The next AoS/fantasy releases would have been commisioned during the panic and purge that happened in the first 6 months post release.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sure, WFB6 was cheaper, but just look at this magnificent beast!

Spoiler:

I don't even play Orks, but I want one!

No, it's not so much the price of 6E vs 8E - it's the rules disaster that's 8E.

That thing could have worked in WHFB too (that game also had orc characters on monsters), just put it on a square base :/

The same goes for Sigmar Dudes. If GW wanted they could have made them a WHFB army (as an antithesis to Chaos Warriors). There's no real need to change the whole game for magnificent models (they could have made a new WHFB edition that needs bigger square bases (30mm/32mm/35mm?) for all infantry).

Yes, these new, huge minis could have worked in WFB. Except WFB had reached the point that each of those minis would have had a mass of overcomplicated rules and special rules that cross-reference other special rules, all of which get in the way of them simply being monsters. It is a real pity that AoS didn't do just a bit more to standardize Monster profiles and how they degrade as they take wounds.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Except WFB had reached the point that each of those minis would have had a mass of overcomplicated rules and special rules that cross-reference other special rules, all of which get in the way of them simply being monsters.

Why's that?

GW do have a bit of "special rules creep", but it's not really a necessity. They have in the past had editions where they simplified rules instead of complicating them.

Baron Klatz wrote:
@Davor, I suppose that's possible on GW keeping their productions smaller though the fact that the "out of stock" is not an uncommon sign across the model lines at least means their sale rates are good.

Or that they misjudged demand again, which they seem to be terrible for.

GW have been making an effort to keep inventory low for a long time (you can see the trend in the annual reports) because it's cheaper. Ideally they'd produce demand -1 units*, or restock quickly, but they seem to err on the low side and re-release later. Doing this also keeps fans on their toes and the artificial scarcity forces people to buy stuff immediately even if they don't need it.

Lots of stores only get a single 1 of each item, and then sell out. Without any real idea of numbers, we've no way of telling how well stuff is selling, just that it's sold slightly more than they accounted for.


*So they don't have any left over stock.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yes, these new, huge minis could have worked in WFB. Except WFB had reached the point that each of those minis would have had a mass of overcomplicated rules and special rules that cross-reference other special rules, all of which get in the way of them simply being monsters. It is a real pity that AoS didn't do just a bit more to standardize Monster profiles and how they degrade as they take wounds.

That is not intrinsic of the nature of WHFB, but just of the bad quality of the new GW designers.

I hate AoS guts, but I hate 8th edition too. Is what made me quit WHFB. Is one of the dumbest thing GW ever made, and was something directionless, stupid, and probably aimed at forcing people to buy 4 boxes for 1 unit.

There wer quite some "basic" big monsters in WHF 8th edition with only very few rules. Even the giant lost most of it's rules down to a single page. That's totally fine. Big centermodels are free to have some nice rules to make them more interesting.
AoS or WHF it doesnt really matter in that case.

Well, because I was an idiot and ran out of flock for a Christmas project, I ended up having to go to the local GW store.

While there, I had a nice chat with the manager/sole employee.

No gaming space, so no idea what is actually being played, just what is being sold.

In the half hour plus that I was there, I was the only customer. (6:30 on a Tuesday night - not all that surprising.)

At that store, the top seller is, as it has been, Warhammer 40K - the Space Marines alone are outselling everything for AoS. After the Marines come the Orks.

The top sellers in most lines are the boxed starters - with AoS as an exception. (The box just is not moving that well, but... I will get back to that....)

Second is Betrayal at Caith - more Space Marines!

Third was the surprise - Silver Tower is also outselling the AoS box, but I am not certain if Silver Tower counted separately from AoS, or if they are added together. Silver Tower is doing quite well for the store. Much, much better than the AoS box, in spite of price.

Knights for 40K are outselling the cabbage (thanks for that term) - but for AoS the bigger characters in general are doing better than the units. The Fyrie Fire Headed Fire Slayers are selling very poorly indeed.

Sales are up from the early months - they will likely stay open for at least the full year.

Last time I was there they were already talking about closing this store - which at that point had been open for only a couple of months - and were having that discussion while there was a customer (me) in the store. But since they have not found anyone to buy the lease from them, and since they signed a three year lease...?

So, that is how it looks from the local GW store, with all the usual caveats.

The Auld Grump

Did you get any indication of who was buying Silver Tower? There's a lot of nostalgia for Warhammer Quest over here, so I suspect it's that rather than any other factor.

Herzlos wrote:
Did you get any indication of who was buying Silver Tower? There's a lot of nostalgia for Warhammer Quest over here, so I suspect it's that rather than any other factor.

Like I said - no gaming in the store, so all we had to talk about were sales and modelling.

It may be worth noting that their best customer is a commission painter, not really a player. (But I doubt he is the one buying up all the Silver Tower.)

Customers, aside from Glen (the commission painter - turns out to be somebody that I know) seem to be adults buying for their offspring.

The folks that are buying for themselves seem to be going for paints, brushes, basing supplies, and liquid green stuff. (Those last two have been the only reasons that I have gone to the shop.)

The store is not meeting expectations - but without a buyer for the lease it will be almost as expensive to close as to keep open. (The manager seems like a nice guy - this is his first job after getting out of college. He is already putting out apps elsewhere - even if the shop stays open, it does not seem to be a stable working environment.

I think that having a gaming table might have helped - get actual players to come in and buy. But....

The Auld Grump

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Except WFB had reached the point that each of those minis would have had a mass of overcomplicated rules and special rules that cross-reference other special rules, all of which get in the way of them simply being monsters.

Why's that?

GW do have a bit of "special rules creep", but it's not really a necessity. They have in the past had editions where they simplified rules instead of complicating them.

Some editions of WFB were good (i.e. 6E); however, we are talking about a release for the then-current version of WFB - 8E. 8E had unnecessary complexity on a level not seen since 5E.

wfb 4th and 5th where great

I liked most editions for different reasons except 8th which just killed it for me.

I started in 5th but quite liked the start of 6th.

GW are silly with their complexity these days, they either go stupid complex or stupid simple.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I liked most editions for different reasons except 8th which just killed it for me.

I started in 5th but quite liked the start of 6th.

GW are silly with their complexity these days, they either go stupid complex or stupid simple.

Yup, preferably dead simple. At least the game itself plays with a minimum of fuss and hassle. Considering how GW keeps saying they're a models company (and they absolutely are), not going to AoS simple rules earlier is kinda crazy. Now, with the boardgames, they're cranking out tiny rulesets, and one can only hope that these are all alpha testing mechanics that will inform 40k 8E.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I liked most editions for different reasons except 8th which just killed it for me.

I started in 5th but quite liked the start of 6th.

GW are silly with their complexity these days, they either go stupid complex or stupid simple.

Yup, preferably dead simple. At least the game itself plays with a minimum of fuss and hassle. Considering how GW keeps saying they're a models company (and they absolutely are), not going to AoS simple rules earlier is kinda crazy. Now, with the boardgames, they're cranking out tiny rulesets, and one can only hope that these are all alpha testing mechanics that will inform 40k 8E.

For me is different, I can handle complexity when is not unnecessarily clunky and is balanced.

40k, sadly, is full of useless rolls and re-rolls, and is unbalanced. Is really amateurish.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yes, these new, huge minis could have worked in WFB. Except WFB had reached the point that each of those minis would have had a mass of overcomplicated rules and special rules that cross-reference other special rules, all of which get in the way of them simply being monsters. It is a real pity that AoS didn't do just a bit more to standardize Monster profiles and how they degrade as they take wounds.

I always thought they could have done the best of both worlds, by simplifying the rules (not necessarily even as far as they did with AoS- just a middleground of the two), and give the Old World setting all the new pretty models.

Orks could have gotten big new badasses and monsters, the forest of Lorien could enter the fight 'herself' with the new Sylvaneth, and Sigmar could be sending his Asguardians, er...Stormcast, down from the skies in lightning just like in the new Mortal Realms.

I think we can all handle rules compexity, but why should we, when it's really just an exercise to shoot the gak, have a beer, eat some pretzels, and make "pew-pew" (or "FREEEEEM!") noises? 40k 7E's rules get in the way of that.

GW did the right thing to strip the rules to the bone; WFB 8E needed it almost as much as 40k 7E needs it. Advancing the timeline was a surprise, but not a dealbeaker, as it doesn't affect the tabletop. Changing the names was a major irritant (I still play "Imperial Guard"!). All of that, people could have accepted, in time. But pulling points and asking players to control themselves, to play a gentlemanly game? That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Had GW started by publishing GHB as 9E, it would have been far better received.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW did the right thing to strip the rules to the bone

Except they didn't strip the rules to the bone, they threw them out and replaced them with a game that bears almost no resemblance to what came before it.

If all they'd done was strip WHFB back to basics I would have been cheering for it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Had GW started by publishing GHB as 9E, it would have been far better received.

Yeah I doubt that, points values for AoS is a long way from what was wanted by traditional WHFB fans who didn't like AoS.

That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

I played a few games of AoS before deciding I had no interest in it.

WHFB's biggest defining feature was that it was a ranked combat game that revolved around stacking combat resolution/leadership in your favour to break the enemy, capture standards, etc. That AoS has roughly the same turn structure and a similar hit/wound/save structure does not mean it plays the same as WHFB in my mind.

But then I guess it's just perspective, I think WHFB and 40k have very different defining features but you obviously think they're similar enough to lump all 3 games together.

Maybe that's where GW went wrong, thinking people would see AoS as being like a stripped down WHFB and just change over happily instead of something completely different that may not appeal to them in the slightest.

OK, fair enough.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I played a few games of AoS before deciding I had no interest in it.

WHFB's biggest defining feature was that it was a ranked combat game that revolved around stacking combat resolution/leadership in your favour to break the enemy, capture standards, etc. That AoS has roughly the same turn structure and a similar hit/wound/save structure does not mean it plays the same as WHFB in my mind.

But then I guess it's just perspective, I think WHFB and 40k have very different defining features but you obviously think they're similar enough to lump all 3 games together.

Maybe that's where GW went wrong, thinking people would see AoS as being like a stripped down WHFB and just change over happily instead of something completely different that may not appeal to them in the slightest.

Exactly. AOS is very different from WHFB. If it wasnt made by GW, nobody would say they are similar. The distinctive part of warhamer was maneuvering blocks and flanking ennemy units, and both of these things are absent in AOS. And having fixed to hit and to wound rolls also removed the rock-paper-scissor part of WHFB. It's a bit similar to 40k though


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sure, WFB6 was cheaper, but just look at this magnificent beast!

I don't even play Orks, but I want one!

No, it's not so much the price of 6E vs 8E - it's the rules disaster that's 8E.

As much as I hate AOS, most of the models released have been magnificient, including this one. Some are bad though (most stormcast, the regular fyreslayers)

I probably would have liked Maw Krusha if it weren't for the wings.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I probably would have liked Maw Krusha if it weren't for the wings.

It's not a typical dragon, but I actually like it more. It's more cumbersome, bulky, and gruff, all Orky things

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW did the right thing to strip the rules to the bone; WFB 8E needed it almost as much as 40k 7E needs it.

I believe it's the other way around... WHFB seemed *a lot* heavier than 40k.

 jreilly89 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I probably would have liked Maw Krusha if it weren't for the wings.

It's not a typical dragon, but I actually like it more. It's more cumbersome, bulky, and gruff, all Orky things

I think I'd be happiest if it were just a ground pounder with no wings at all.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:GW are silly with their complexity these days, they either go stupid complex or stupid simple.

I don't think complexity is a good proxy for how good a game is, unless the complexity is the thing spoiling it. Say what you will about KoW, but it does demonstrate that you don't need complexity to have a good game with tactical depth, if anything limiting complexity is a good design policy. Not disagreeing, your comment just reminded me of this point.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I think we can all handle rules complexity, but why should we, when it's really just an exercise to shoot the gak, have a beer, eat some pretzels, and make "pew-pew" (or "FREEEEEM!") noises? 40k 7E's rules get in the way of that.

If AoS was designed to be a game like that (I'm quite sure it is) then it was designed well because it achieves that purpose. Whether you like that kind of game is another matter.

 DarkBlack wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I think we can all handle rules complexity, but why should we, when it's really just an exercise to shoot the gak, have a beer, eat some pretzels, and make "pew-pew" (or "FREEEEEM!") noises? 40k 7E's rules get in the way of that.

If AoS was designed to be a game like that (I'm quite sure it is) then it was designed well because it achieves that purpose. Whether you like that kind of game is another matter.

I enjoy that sort of game far more than I enjoy playing "hunt the relevant paragraph, related to subsection b, series 2". 40k shouldn't be a game for paralegals.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

Speaking for myself, I haven't played AoS, but I don't need to in order to see that the rules are closely related to 40K. It's an important reason I haven't been interested in AoS. Why bother when I already have large 40K armies that I don't use because 40K is a vomitous mass?

DarkBlack wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:GW are silly with their complexity these days, they either go stupid complex or stupid simple.

I don't think complexity is a good proxy for how good a game is, unless the complexity is the thing spoiling it. Say what you will about KoW, but it does demonstrate that you don't need complexity to have a good game with tactical depth, if anything limiting complexity is a good design policy. Not disagreeing, your comment just reminded me of this point.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I think we can all handle rules complexity, but why should we, when it's really just an exercise to shoot the gak, have a beer, eat some pretzels, and make "pew-pew" (or "FREEEEEM!") noises? 40k 7E's rules get in the way of that.

If AoS was designed to be a game like that (I'm quite sure it is) then it was designed well because it achieves that purpose. Whether you like that kind of game is another matter.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I enjoy that sort of game far more than I enjoy playing "hunt the relevant paragraph, related to subsection b, series 2". 40k shouldn't be a game for paralegals.

That's why I talked about GW going to absurd extremes of complexity.

Whether a game is 4 pages long like AoS or 10 pages long isn't going to have a huge effect on how long it takes you to learn it, so IMO you might as well just add the depth and make it 10 pages long.

On the other hand we have 40k, how long are the rules in that these days, 100 pages or something stupid like that?

It'd be nice if GW found a happy middle ground with one of their games.

Neither 40k nor WHFB nor AoS are role models for how to design a good game IMO.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I enjoy that sort of game far more than I enjoy playing "hunt the relevant paragraph, related to subsection b, series 2". 40k shouldn't be a game for paralegals.

That's why I talked about GW going to absurd extremes of complexity.

Whether a game is 4 pages long like AoS or 10 pages long isn't going to have a huge effect on how long it takes you to learn it, so IMO you might as well just add the depth and make it 10 pages long.

On the other hand we have 40k, how long are the rules in that these days, 100 pages or something stupid like that?


Neither 40k nor WHFB nor AoS are role models for how to design a good game IMO.

Indeed. 4 pages vs 10 pages isn't that big of a difference. The non-free versions of AoS are more like 8 pages with art & graphics. 100+ page things like 40k7 / N3 / FoW are excessive and bloated. And that's just the "core", before you add all of the faction & unit & item rules.

When I got around to writing KOG light, I deliberately used AoS as the baseline for it's design. For an ultralight, minimalist beer-and-pretzels game, it's turned out quite well. Now, granted that I changed a lot of stuff in AoS, but that's where I started, and it was a far better start than if I had started with 40k7 / N3 / FoW instead.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

That is an ignorant thing to say. Did you ever play WHFB?

AoS plays very, very little like WHFB - WHFB is a game of close unit maneuvering, while AoS is about a loose mob being moved in a general direction - AoS is a lot closer to 40K - but the feel that I actually got from the game was that it was similar to the combat portion of a badly written RTS computer game.

There are rules similarities between WHFB-WH40K-AoS but the play is very different indeed - and AoS is not at all what I want for the successor to WHFB.

WHFB was killed over the course of two editions - AoS was only the final nail in the coffin, by the time it came out, aside from a brief resurgence during the End Times, the line was dying - not because of inherent problem with the concept, but becaue GW was putting no real work into making a functional set of rules.

Telling people that it is the same does you little good - there are indeed very large differences in play, and those folks that enjoyed WHFB are not going to be at home to saying that there are the saame.

The Auld Grump


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkBlack wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:GW are silly with their complexity these days, they either go stupid complex or stupid simple.

I don't think complexity is a good proxy for how good a game is, unless the complexity is the thing spoiling it. Say what you will about KoW, but it does demonstrate that you don't need complexity to have a good game with tactical depth, if anything limiting complexity is a good design policy. Not disagreeing, your comment just reminded me of this point.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I think we can all handle rules complexity, but why should we, when it's really just an exercise to shoot the gak, have a beer, eat some pretzels, and make "pew-pew" (or "FREEEEEM!") noises? 40k 7E's rules get in the way of that.

If AoS was designed to be a game like that (I'm quite sure it is) then it was designed well because it achieves that purpose. Whether you like that kind of game is another matter.

Exactly - it is perfectly OK to enjoy AoS as a beer and pretzels tactical game - but some folks want a good deal more depth than it provides.

It is not a matter of rules complexity - as you say, KoW is deceptively simple. It is about how the game plays.

I honestly think that a new edition of WHFB completely separate from AoS would have done a much better job of keeping the existing audience - instead it was very much like getting slapped in the face, with the online battle scrolls for the older units being an added insult.

I have no urge to ever try AoS again - it was not an enjoyable game for me.

The Auld Grump

AllSeeingSkink wrote:Neither 40k nor WHFB nor AoS are role models for how to design a good game IMO.

That is so true. Thing is it's a good model to how to make millions of dollars for like 10+ years straight. I would say 30 years but I just remember from the year 2000 and up. So not sure if GW ever had a loss before year 2000. Big corperation or not, little company or not, making more than 4 million a year in profit for over a decade is pretty impressive. No mater what we say about the rules, GW found a formula how to get people to keep buying minis. After all Privateer Press seems to be following in Games Workshop foot prints in a few things they do now.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

That is an ignorant thing to say. Did you ever play WHFB?

AoS plays very, very little like WHFB - WHFB is a game of close unit maneuvering,

The Auld Grump

Not even close. WFB is a game of monsters, shooting and devastating Magic. Maneuver has almost nothing to do with it.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

That is an ignorant thing to say. Did you ever play WHFB?

AoS plays very, very little like WHFB - WHFB is a game of close unit maneuvering,

The Auld Grump

Not even close. WFB is a game of monsters, shooting and devastating Magic. Maneuver has almost nothing to do with it.

That is completely false, maneuver had EVERYTHING to do with it. You could still have a game without monsters, shooting, OR devastating magic and it would still play. Take out maneuvering and you essentially have Yahtzee while you show your models off.

You play your way, I'll play mine. Mine won me plenty enough games.

 Just Tony wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

That is an ignorant thing to say. Did you ever play WHFB?

AoS plays very, very little like WHFB - WHFB is a game of close unit maneuvering,

The Auld Grump

Not even close. WFB is a game of monsters, shooting and devastating Magic. Maneuver has almost nothing to do with it.

That is completely false, maneuver had EVERYTHING to do with it. You could still have a game without monsters, shooting, OR devastating magic and it would still play. Take out maneuvering and you essentially have Yahtzee while you show your models off.

Someone got a misfire on their fringe roll?

Davor wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:Neither 40k nor WHFB nor AoS are role models for how to design a good game IMO.

That is so true. Thing is it's a good model to how to make millions of dollars for like 10+ years straight. I would say 30 years but I just remember from the year 2000 and up. So not sure if GW ever had a loss before year 2000. Big corperation or not, little company or not, making more than 4 million a year in profit for over a decade is pretty impressive. No mater what we say about the rules, GW found a formula how to get people to keep buying minis. After all Privateer Press seems to be following in Games Workshop foot prints in a few things they do now.

But GW's growth didn't have a whole lot to do with the rules. They were in the right place at the right time and marketed themselves in the right way at that time.

Also when WHFB and 40k saw their biggest growth was in a time where there weren't as many obvious competitors for sci fi and fantasy table top gaming, so poor rules was less of a problem. Now I walk in to a wargaming shop and have the owner tell me "Well 40k and Warhammer are a bit of a mess these days, but let me show you Infinity, Malifaux, X-Wing, Guild Ball, Kings of War, Bolt Action, Flames of War, etc". GW games no longer occupy most of the space in your average gaming shop like they did in the 90's and 00's.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Exactly - it is perfectly OK to enjoy AoS as a beer and pretzels tactical game - but some folks want a good deal more depth than it provides.

The Auld Grump

Sadly the answer has to be "them play something else", happily there is a game for pretty much however you want to play these days. Not that you can find opponents for all of them though.

Where I am AoS and KoW are coexisting quite well. The games don't really grow at expense of each other, it is easy enough for some players to do both and for the rest the two games appeal to entirely different people.

AoS falls down as a b&p game bexause the rules aren't actually that simple. Sure the core rules are 4 pages, but then you've got all the extra stuff like generals handbook and special rules. Then there's the cost of the minis.

Compare it to X-Wing or Tanks! You can get a good grqsp of the fules in a single read or played turn, they codt less than the pizza and have a surprisingly level if depth.

Herzlos wrote:
AoS falls down as a b&p game bexause the rules aren't actually that simple. Sure the core rules are 4 pages, but then you've got all the extra stuff like generals handbook and special rules. Then there's the cost of the minis.

Compare it to X-Wing or Tanks! You can get a good grqsp of the fules in a single read or played turn, they codt less than the pizza and have a surprisingly level if depth.

I've always interpreted "beer and pretzels" to mean "I don't actually care about the game I just want to line up my models and go pew pew pew".

That people tout 40k as a beer and pretzels game has made the term tantamount to a joke.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

That is an ignorant thing to say. Did you ever play WHFB?

AoS plays very, very little like WHFB - WHFB is a game of close unit maneuvering,

The Auld Grump

Not even close. WFB is a game of monsters, shooting and devastating Magic. Maneuver has almost nothing to do with it.

Here is the exact moment in which I doubt that you ever played WHFB.

As a Freeguild/Empire player I have to do so much more manoeuvring in AoS compared to WHFB. The latter promoted gunlines for a shooty army whereas the 6 matched play scenarios are all based on board control (there is not a single kill point game). I need to get my army down the flanks, into the enemy deployment and react to them trying to do the same.

WHFB had wheeling, flank charges etc but as terrain could be such a hinderence to this (a complicated move would take almost the entire battle).

AoS has flank charges and so forth still. They are not built in as mechanics but the existing mechanics already provides benefits. For example being charged in the front and the flank would mean one could no longer pile in as once a unit is out of coherency the only moves allowed to be made are ones that bring it back into coherency (and being charged from two directions would make at impossible). You'll find you can interact with terrain much better, and moving through a narrow corridor and then fanning out on the other side need not take 3 turns to accomplish.

For me, AoS is an excellent tactical game. I find there is much tactics and strategy to be had than in old WHFB.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Davor wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:Neither 40k nor WHFB nor AoS are role models for how to design a good game IMO.

That is so true. Thing is it's a good model to how to make millions of dollars for like 10+ years straight. I would say 30 years but I just remember from the year 2000 and up. So not sure if GW ever had a loss before year 2000. Big corperation or not, little company or not, making more than 4 million a year in profit for over a decade is pretty impressive. No mater what we say about the rules, GW found a formula how to get people to keep buying minis. After all Privateer Press seems to be following in Games Workshop foot prints in a few things they do now.

But GW's growth didn't have a whole lot to do with the rules. They were in the right place at the right time and marketed themselves in the right way at that time.

Also when WHFB and 40k saw their biggest growth was in a time where there weren't as many obvious competitors for sci fi and fantasy table top gaming, so poor rules was less of a problem. Now I walk in to a wargaming shop and have the owner tell me "Well 40k and Warhammer are a bit of a mess these days, but let me show you Infinity, Malifaux, X-Wing, Guild Ball, Kings of War, Bolt Action, Flames of War, etc". GW games no longer occupy most of the space in your average gaming shop like they did in the 90's and 00's.

GW basically has been shrinking since WHFB 7th and 40K 6th came out. Actually, it started shrinking when the LoTR bubble burst about 11 years ago, but that was an exceptional case and probably could not have been avoided.

The shrinkage is due to various reasons, expense being one of them, but dissatisfaction with the rules is another. Lots of veterans hate the last two editions of both games and have given up.

If AoS presents a ruleset that appeals to a large number of new people, who aren't put off by the price of the models, then it can sell well. 40K seems to sell largely on the mega model kits that have been the main thrust of development since late 5th edition.

GW has been shrinking since 2004 when the lotr bubble burst and they cancelled specialist games they went from 36+ million profit each year down to less than half that more recently.

Kirbys poor management has seen the most popular games of the early 2000's become the most mocked.

Roundtree got handed a company in a very sorry state and has so far failed to make the crucial change needed to see it expand again.

While I'm pretty off-topic with this:

Frankly as a casual player who absolutely loves the Old World fluff, if there was any gaming scene at all around me I would have no problem at all playing games in the Old World with the AoS rules. I have played a great many rulesets over the last 20 years and they are far from the worst. I agree that without the death of the Old World, they would have less sourness attached.

Frankly, Kings of War is a bit bland rules-wise, but that lets it handle rank and file much better than the giant Warhammer 8th edition 'rules encyclopedia'. Regardless of how people say because of the wound mechanics that "units could just be represented by wooden blocks, not models", it still can look completely indistinguishable from WHFB on the table, but with a ruleset that's not mired in a past that was assisted by being the only big company around enabligh clunky rules to succeed.

At the very least Necromunda could be re-released with the old rules, as they aren't fighting a changed legacy/setting like Mordheim. They are as old as dirt, but they work just fine (yes, even close combat!), so far as I use the lack of unit coherency, down/out of action rules, and bottle tests to play great fun skirmish games of 40k 2nd Ed.

I wouldn't dare try to teach modern 40k to a newbie, even as a huge fan. It's a clunky mess.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

That is an ignorant thing to say. Did you ever play WHFB?

AoS plays very, very little like WHFB - WHFB is a game of close unit maneuvering,

The Auld Grump

Not even close. WFB is a game of monsters, shooting and devastating Magic. Maneuver has almost nothing to do with it.

Here is the exact moment in which I doubt that you ever played WHFB.

No, I just played a different army from you. Tell you what, we'll play under 6E rules, and I'll break out my Heavens Wizards, Empire Cannons, Crossbows, and DoW support and we'll see how much maneuver I need to beat you on a typical board with 6E levels of terrain... It won't be very much, I can tell you that. Note that 6E has no prohibitions against sniping, and I am *excellent* at "guessing" range.

The movement phase of WHF made or lost the game for people. To say that movement had nothing to do with it is one of the largest falsehoods I've ever seen.

WHF has more tactical depth in it's Index section than AOS has in its entirety.

Really? moving a bunch of round bases in any direction with almost no coherency is now considered tactical? Flank charges? Are you joking?

I am not denying that 8th edition didn't have its share of problems, but I've played enough games of Age of Sigmar that I can say the game feels incomplete with only four pages of rules.
Yes, Games Workshop needed to do something different because they doubled down on model count games and tactics. As a veteran player when I saw the 8th edition rules set I was
happy that I only needed to buy a few units; But for a new player.. they would need a house loan to cover a army purchase. Let alone the time needed to paint that many models.
Age of Sigmar was right in dropping model count, but GW could have done that without killing off the world and destroying all previous history with it.
Before 8th edition normal tournaments we would normally see 14 - 20 players average showing up.. with a larger amount of players in the community that didn't participate in the tournaments.
Now we have a slow building of local gamers that seem scared that GW will just abandon them like they did before to WFB players.. Just this month, more than a year after AoS release
a local store sponsored a tournament. .. 6 players showed up.. Most were new players, I guess GW got what they wanted.. A game to attract new gamers...

Have you guys played AoS with the GHB or just with the 4 pages of core rules? The GHB improved the game so so much. I recommend you give it another shot before dismissing it. The 4 pages serve as an introduction only in my opinion for younger wargamers.

I'm not very interested by the core rules and I am doubly not very interested by the idea of buying an expensive supplement that might or might not turn them into a set of rules I would be interested in playing.

It's a £15 book. Not expensive in my opinion, and definitely not expensive by GW standards.

Yeah, I'm no lover of AoS, but the Generals book is shockingly cheap for GW, when the army books are so expensive. Still not cheap enough to get into AoS in anything more than a skirmish capacity, though.

I can get behind a game that costs £0. I can get behind a game that costs £15. I can't get behind a game that costs £(15+x/0).

JohnHwangDD wrote:You play your way, I'll play mine. Mine won me plenty enough games.

Not saying you can't, and I've won my fair share of games in the 6th-7th era myself. I still stand that since 6th dropped, monsters aren't game ending, magic doesn't turn the entire game, and shooting can't do the damage that everyone touts it as doing. I'm still playing 6th on almost a monthly basis, and maneuvering is the lifeblood of the game.

Joyboozer wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

That is an ignorant thing to say. Did you ever play WHFB?

AoS plays very, very little like WHFB - WHFB is a game of close unit maneuvering,

The Auld Grump

Not even close. WFB is a game of monsters, shooting and devastating Magic. Maneuver has almost nothing to do with it.

That is completely false, maneuver had EVERYTHING to do with it. You could still have a game without monsters, shooting, OR devastating magic and it would still play. Take out maneuvering and you essentially have Yahtzee while you show your models off.

Someone got a misfire on their fringe roll?

...

I don't get it.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

That is an ignorant thing to say. Did you ever play WHFB?

AoS plays very, very little like WHFB - WHFB is a game of close unit maneuvering,

The Auld Grump

Not even close. WFB is a game of monsters, shooting and devastating Magic. Maneuver has almost nothing to do with it.

Here is the exact moment in which I doubt that you ever played WHFB.

No, I just played a different army from you. Tell you what, we'll play under 6E rules, and I'll break out my Heavens Wizards, Empire Cannons, Crossbows, and DoW support and we'll see how much maneuver I need to beat you on a typical board with 6E levels of terrain... It won't be very much, I can tell you that. Note that 6E has no prohibitions against sniping, and I am *excellent* at "guessing" range.

I wish I was closer to SoCal, I'd take that Pepsi Challenge in a heartbeat. Cannons kill at most 5 models a turn unless you're ranking them further, spells don't automatically go off and can be dispelled, crossbows still suffer minuses to hit until you get within half range, and I've yet to find anything in the DOW army that frightens me other than pikes, and even those don't if you leave the cav at home. My Elves would be weathering the fire for two to three turns, and I'd be in. I can suffer that much damage, especially since your crossbows won't have jack for CR.

Bottle wrote:Have you guys played AoS with the GHB or just with the 4 pages of core rules? The GHB improved the game so so much. I recommend you give it another shot before dismissing it. The 4 pages serve as an introduction only in my opinion for younger wargamers.

So basically play it til you like it? Is it only GW that generates company loyalty to this level?

 Just Tony wrote:

Bottle wrote:Have you guys played AoS with the GHB or just with the 4 pages of core rules? The GHB improved the game so so much. I recommend you give it another shot before dismissing it. The 4 pages serve as an introduction only in my opinion for younger wargamers.

So basically play it til you like it? Is it only GW that generates company loyalty to this level?

Err, no. It's acknowledging that there are beginner rules and advanced rules for AoS. The GHB adds the advanced rules for competitive and tactical play. Before the GHB I played with fan comps that did the same thing (such as SCGT).

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That's an ignorant thing to say when AoS clearly plays like 40k/WFB. Have you even played AoS?

That is an ignorant thing to say. Did you ever play WHFB?

AoS plays very, very little like WHFB - WHFB is a game of close unit maneuvering,

The Auld Grump

Not even close. WFB is a game of monsters, shooting and devastating Magic. Maneuver has almost nothing to do with it.

Here is the exact moment in which I doubt that you ever played WHFB.

My take as well.

'See this game that is nothing like the game you like? Well, Imma gonna say that it is just like that game you like!'

If the cat has kittens in the oven, it don't make them biscuits.

The Auld Grump

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I can get behind a game that costs £0. I can get behind a game that costs £15. I can't get behind a game that costs £(15+x/0).

I have got no idea what point you are trying to make. Sorry. Care to enlighten me?

Most of my WHFB experience happened during 6th. 90% of a 6th game gets decided between initial deployment and the subsequent movement phases.

And this is quite well known for anyone who has ever played 6th on a relatively regular basis.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
The movement phase of WHF made or lost the game for people. To say that movement had nothing to do with it is one of the largest falsehoods I've ever seen.

WHF has more tactical depth in it's Index section than AOS has in its entirety.

Really? moving a bunch of round bases in any direction with almost no coherency is now considered tactical? Flank charges? Are you joking?

Yep, some of the AOS aficionado are really stretching the elastic when they try to claim that it's a more tactical game tha WHFB. It simply ain't. Doesn't mean it's a bad game (I think it's a terrible game, but that's beside the point), but it doesn't even approach WHFB level of tactial depth.

For example, a few of the weapon options don't do any difference in AOS (3+/4+ is the same thing as 4+/3+ ....yeah, I know some character can give a boost to one or the other, but it still doesnt make much of a difference tactic wise), while the weapons options had a huge impact on the role and utility of a unit in WHFB.

If you try to sell me AOS as a cool beer and pretzel game, that's alright, but don't try to sell me a horse while claiming it is a car.

 Bottle wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I can get behind a game that costs £0. I can get behind a game that costs £15. I can't get behind a game that costs £(15+x/0).

I have got no idea what point you are trying to make. Sorry. Care to enlighten me?

Loosely translated from the High Gibberish - 'I cannot get behind a free game that needs a fifteen quid supplement to fix the problems inherent in the free game'.

The Auld Grump

Given that ghb was the supposed fix for their free game it to should of been free.

After all they are a model company first right.

But no as usual GW can't even fix a game without trying to screw over their customers.

TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I can get behind a game that costs £0. I can get behind a game that costs £15. I can't get behind a game that costs £(15+x/0).

I have got no idea what point you are trying to make. Sorry. Care to enlighten me?

Loosely translated from the High Gibberish - 'I cannot get behind a free game that needs a fifteen quid supplement to fix the problems inherent in the free game'.

The Auld Grump

Thanks :-p

I wouldn't say the core game has any problems other than it doesn't cater for a competitive game imo, but the GHB does cater.

hobojebus wrote:Given that ghb was the supposed fix for their free game it to should of been free.

After all they are a model company first right.

But no as usual GW can't even fix a game without trying to screw over their customers.

You're trying too hard.

I would personally ignore that the web rules ever existed, and consider the Generals Handbook the "real" game, which is actually a pretty good deal as full-on wargames go.

If it wasn't for the hideous price of good sized armies, AoS would really not be bad in my situation. I have little to no gaming scene in my area (which really sucks) and only get to have a full, serious wargame experience of a couple hours a few times a year, when both my schedule and my buddy's match up, and we both have two kids to deal with- usually during game time, too.

I have multiple rulesets as involved as WHFB or 40k, and it's hard to get back in the swing of things that infrequently, and far, far too much time is wasted looking things up. I have grown tired of tomes of rules, so I have really grown to love rules-light wargames that achieve the same results in 30 pages or less, cover to cover.

This is why I think the comment that AoS is outselling 40k is false; there is to many gamers on forums here saying the game is dead or Almost in their area..
The sad truth is AoS took a bad step when they released it and with the strong competition of other game companies they have had to fight to get it back..

Something I thought I would never say .. but I agree with TheAuldGrump and Kilkrazy on their views of Age of Sigmar..
No one is saying it's impossible to play.. again there is to many strong competitors in the table top gaming field for do things half way
then try to patch it like a video game... Games Workshop is just now starting to return but it is just not just fixing AoS .. it is fixing the White Dwarf,
returning to social media, communicating with their customers.. Something they should have done before putting the Ax to Warhammer Fantasy.

i just can't believe AoS would be outselling 40k in any general sense or over any extended period of time. Even if it did GREAT for the past quarter or two, that would mean either AoS is outselling WFB by what... 500%? Assuming WFB made up about 15% of their revenue in the middle of 8th which is roughly the general consensus. Doubtful.

The other possibility is that 40k tanked so hard recently that AoS is roughly on par with it. Even assuming AoS is doing 2 or 3 times the sales of WFB that would be terrible. Were that the case we'd be hearing investor warnings and such I'm sure. Again, doubtful.

The truth is most likely that it's doing better than its detractors believe and worse than its fans believe it is/should be.

As someone who has been very negative towards the game for a good while personally, I will admit it has caught on more than I thought was possible. It's in bad shape around me, but clearly people are buying it Somewhere in enough quantity to justify development of future releases and to more or less replace WFB in its fading years.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I'm not very interested by the core rules and I am doubly not very interested by the idea of buying an expensive supplement that might or might not turn them into a set of rules I would be interested in playing.

$25 USD is expensive? For 170 pages of rules? Full color print? Hardback?
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Age-of-Sigmar-Generals-Handbook-ENG

As I see it, GHB is the "real" rulebook for AoS, and the 4-pages are the quickstart summary.